Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

DONCASTER CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL

MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (COUNTY OF BERKS (CONSENT TO LETTING)) BILL

READING CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

ABERDEEN HARBOUR (SUPERANNUATION) ORDER CONFIRMATION

Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Aberdeen Harbour (Superannuation), presented by Mr. John Maclay; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 96.]

ABERDEEN CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION

Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Aberdeen Corporation, presented by Mr. John Maclay; read the First time and ordered (under Section 9 of the Act) to be read a Second time upon Friday 7th June and to be printed. [Bill 97.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Government Securities

Mr. du Cann: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has observed the depressed state of present quotations of Government securities; and what action he proposes to take to remedy the situation.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Nigel Birch): My right hon. Friend observes the fluctuations of the market but he is not prepared to forecast developments.

Mr. du Cann: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it is a very serious matter indeed when important institutional investors like the Church and Lloyd's change their traditional investment policies from investment in gilt-edged stocks to investment in equities in an endeavour to keep pace with the falling value of money since 1939? Does not he also agree that the small investor is becoming progressively disillusioned with investment in gilt-edged stocks, and that it will be very difficult to get the small investor back into the gilt-edged market? Has he observed the experience of the French Government—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is really making a speech on this important subject.

Mr. Birch: The only comment I would make is that I do not think it would be likely to stimulate investment in gilt-edged stocks if we were to force the rate of interest down artificially.

Mr. Holt: As the right hon. Gentleman has not answered the second part of this interesting Question, may I ask him whether he agrees that there is a situation which ought to be remedied and, if there is, what do the Government intend to do about it, because the right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that the Government can considerably influence this market?

Mr. Birth: The subject of monetary policy was dealt with at some length during the Budget debates both by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself.

£Sterling (Value)

Mr. du Cann: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by how much he estimates that the domestic purchasing power of the £ sterling will fall this year. and in each of the next five years.

Mr. Birch: My right hon. Friend is not prepared to make forecasts of this kind whether of rises or falls.

Dr. Broughton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he proposes to take to stop a further fall in the value of the £ sterling.

Mr. Birch: My right hon. Friend dealt fully with the question of costs and prices in his Budget speech on 9th April, and he has nothing to add at present.

Dr. Broughton: As the Government's policy, like the right hon. Gentleman's answer, has proved so unsatisfactory, can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Government intend to implement the promises made by the Conservative Party at the last General Election to improve the value of the £ abroad and to increase its purchasing power at home?

Mr. Birch: I think that the hon. Gentleman would do very well to study the White Paper on the Economic Implications of Full Employment.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the Government now consider to be the reasonable increase in the cost of living per year?

Mr. Nabarro: Reasonable?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Premium Savings Bonds

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the approximate odds against the holder of a £1 Premium Savings Bond winning a prize in the draws which will take place this year in June and July, respectively.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): They will be 2,100 to 1 in June and 8,500 to 1 in July, assuming that there are no further encashments of bonds bought in November and December, 1956.

Mr. Cronin: Is not it very unfair that those people who purchased Premium

Bonds in November should have four times as much chance of winning as those who purchased Premium Bonds in December? Now that the Government have entered the gambling business, will they at least try to lay fair odds for their customers?

Mr. Powell: The people who entered in December will, like everyone else, have a chance in the draw every month so long as they retain the Bonds.

Treasury Bills

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the approximate sum by which the outstanding amount of Treasury Bills issued through weekly tenders has been reduced since the beginning of the year.

Mr. Birch: Seven hundred and twenty million pounds.

Mr. Cronin: Has not this result been achieved by the Government's rather clumsy open market operations which have brought about the depressed state of Government securities referred to by the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann)? is not it a fact that the Government have to flood the market again with Treasury Bills to finance the Budget deficit and further funding operations?

Mr. Birch: The main reason for the fall in Treasury Bills is one which occurs every year—the revenue coming in.

Mr. H. Wilson: Yes, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are now past the flush period for the revenue, and that the explanation for the fall is clearly that stated by my hon. Friend? In view of the disastrous fall in the Government's credit and— I do not mean only in terms of by-elections but in the price of gilt-edged securities as well— will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind a subject which has been much commented on this week, the effect of all this on confidence in sterling?

Mr. Birch: The policy of forcing down the rate of interest has been tried in the past with rather disastrous results.

Mr. Nabarro: What was the position with "Daltons"?

Hire-Purchase Finance Companies

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to give the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies powers to control the borrowing operations of hire-purchase finance houses similar to those he now has in respect of building societies.

Mr. Birch: As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade announced on 28th March, the question of regulating these operations is being further studied. The hon. Member's suggestion will be noted.

Mr. Cronin: Will the right hon. Gentleman expedite consideration of this matter, because the Government promised that hire-purchase legislation would be introduced in this Session? It was mentioned in the Gracious Speech.

Mr. Birch: Yes, I know, but as my right hon. Friend said, it was decided that further consideration was necessary.

Mr. Osborne: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at the present time there are, in Manchester Corporation buses, advertisements for money at 12⅝ per cent. and that the money is going into the hire-purchase world at about 20 per cent.? As that must be inflationary. will he not take steps to stop it?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Credit Restrictions (Football Clubs)

Mr. Turton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how far his requests to the banks to restrict credit apply to overdrafts of football clubs as compared with those of private traders.

Mr. Birch: My right hon. Friend's requests have been in general terms applicable to all borrowers.

Mr. Turton: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it causes concern when a small business being refused an overdraft of £500 finds a football club's overdraft has gone up from £4,000 to £6,000 or £7,000?

Mr. Birch: I have noted my right hon. Friend's remark.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will not the right hon. Gentleman look again at this whole question of the credit squeeze? Is he not

aware that some of the biggest spenders of capital in this country, oil companies and others, are able to disregard the credit squeeze altogether while, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) fairly says, many small traders, some of them vital to the nation because of what they produce or trade in, are being very badly hit indeed?

Mr. Birch: The credit squeeze is operated by the banks under the general directive of my right hon. Friend.

Theatre, Cardiff (Arts Council)

Mr. Gower: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consult with the Arts Council to ascertain what steps may be taken to maintain the only live theatre in Cardiff.

Mr. Powell: It is Government policy to leave to the Arts Council all decisions on the spending of the grant which Parliament makes to it.

Mr. Gower: Is it not a fact that the success of war-ravaged countries such as Austria and Western Germany in reviving the arts and in re-establishing opera houses with the aid of public expenditure has put to shame our own efforts, and should not the function of the Arts Council be to help theatres in the capital cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, as well as a few theatres in London?

Mr. Powell: That may well be, but it would be quite wrong for my right hon. Friend to tell the Arts Council how to spend the money.

Purchase Tax (Wool Piece Goods)

Dr. Broughton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the Purchase Tax yield on sales of wool piece goods for the twelve months ended 31st March. 1957.

Mr. Powell: About £2 million.

Dr. Broughton: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for that information, may I ask him how much longer the Government are going to continue the unjust, indefensible discrimination against wool cloth for the sake of this comparatively very small amount of revenue?

Mr. Powell: There is no discrimination, for this corresponds to the 5 per cent. Purchase Tax upon cotton garments and garments made of other cloth.

Taxation (Companies Trading Overseas)

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate was given by the Board of Inland Revenue in its Memorandum 47 to the Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income as to the United Kingdom tax now payable by United Kingdom concerns operating mainly abroad, excluding insurance and shipping, after allowing for double taxation relief; and whether he has any later estimate.

Mr. Powell: The estimate given to the Royal Commission was £130 million based on profits at their 1951 level and taxation at the rates for 1952–53. The provisional estimate for 1956–57 is about £35 million,

Mr. Gordon Walker: In view of the vagueness of the Chancellor in his Budget speech about the estimate of the cost, which, so he said, would be something over £35 million next year—he did not even say in a full year—has he now been able to form any better and closer estimate of the cost of this change?

Mr. Powell: The figures which I have given are entirely in line with those given by my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Fletcher: Did I understand the hon. Gentleman to say the comparable figures were £130 million and £35 million?

Mr. Powell: Yes. This difference measures the reduction in profits since 1951 and also the reduction of taxation.

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate was given by the Board of Inland Revenue to the Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income as to the revenue that would be lost to the Exchequer if the profits of companies trading overseas were to he taxed only on remittances.

Mr. Powell: The loss of revenue was estimated at £90 million on the basis of the 1951 level of profits and distributions and 1952–53 levels of taxation.

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much revenue has been lost in the estimate of the Board of Inland Revenue by the failure to adopt the recommendations contained in paragraphs. 30 to 40 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Income Tax, 1920, with regard to the distinction between active control and complete potential control of United Kingdom companies trading overseas.

Mr. Powell: I regret that the information which would enable such an estimate to be made is not available.

Mr. Fletcher: Would the Financial Secretary take steps to try to have it available before we consider Part IV of the Finance Bill?

Mr. Powell: I am afraid that it would be very difficult to obtain information about the profits which non-resident companies do not remit to this country.

Heavy Wines (Duty)

Dr. Bennett: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that his policy of disproportionately heavy taxation of heavy wines is now encouraging the blending of light wines, paying I3s. a gallon duty, with small quantities of stronger liquors to produce so-called heavy wines whose duty paid is in the neighbourhood of only 20s. a gallon, as against 50s. a gallon for genuine sherries or ports; and whether, in fairness to the genuine heavy wines, he will reduce their duties to a level more proportionate to that on light wines.

Mr. Powell: My hon. Friend has tabled an Amendment on this subject to the Finance Bill and I ought not to anticipate debate upon it.

Dr. Bennett: Will my hon. Friend anticipate the debate to the extent of considering reducing the duty on the one rather than putting up the duty on the other, in order to meet this difficulty?

Mr. Powell: Certainly study will be given in advance to my hon. Friend's new Clause.

Mr. Nabarro: In view of the special relationship between Britain and her oldest ally in Western Europe, namely, Portugal, will my hon. Friend say what influence the policy in the Finance Bill


will have upon restoring our traditional imports of large quantities of port from Portugal?

Mr. Powell: I think we had better wait and see what transpires in the discussion.

Closed Cinemas

Mr. Hirst: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of cinemas which have closed during the year compared with the previous year.

Mr. Powell: The provisional net figure for the number of cinemas closed in the year ended 31st March, 1957, is 221 compared with 72 in the previous year.

Mr. Hirst: Do not those figures indicate a fact of which my hon. Friend must be well aware, that the position has worsened since, and that the Entertainments Duty has played a large part in that? Does my hon. Friend consider it reasonable that cinemas which lose money in consequence of the payment of Entertainments Duty should also thereby be forced to close?

Mr. Powell: It is by no means certain how far this decline is either largely or entirely due to Entertainments Duty, but the changes in the Entertainments Duty which have been made by the Budget should certainly be a help in the present financial year.

Mr. H. Wilson: Yes, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that last year we warned the Government that this which has happened would happen, that there would be this closure of cinemas, and that that was denied from the Treasury Bench? In view of the fact that those warnings have regrettably been justified in the event, will the hon. Gentleman pay a little, more attention to the warnings which we gave him last week on the same subject?

Mr. Powell: I do not know about warnings, but it seems to me a pity that the party opposite put up the tax on the cinema industry in their last year of office.

Mr. H. Wilson: Since the levels of taxation should always be related to ability to pay, will the hon. Gentleman

say how many cinemas have closed down in our last year of office?

Mr. Powell: I will try to get the figure for the right hon. Gentleman, if he wants it.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVICE

Administrative Class (Welshmen)

Mr. Gower: asked the Secretary to the Treasury what efforts are being made to recruit an adequate number of Welshmen for administrative posts in the Civil Service, to meet the growing importance of the Welsh departments of several Ministries; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Powell: The Civil Service Commission selects entrants to the Administrative Class of the Civil Service solely by competitive examination. In appointing such staff to posts in Wales, Departments give full weight to Welsh affinities, and in particular, wherever desirable, to ability to speak Welsh.

Mr. Gower: Has my hon. Friend's attention been drawn to a recent article in the Western Mail in which a well-known. retired civil servant expressed his conviction that the devolution of administration in Welsh Departments has been handicapped by the shortage of civil servants with special knowledge of Welsh affairs?

Mr. Powell: I have not seen that article, but I shall be glad to look at it if my hon. Friend will be kind enough to send it to me.

Mr. C. Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman ensure that fuller information on the whole range of Civil Service appointments is made available to secondary schools and the university colleges of Wales so as to stimulate the entry of young people in Wales into the Civil Service?

Mr. Powell: I am informed that the Civil Service Commission keeps in close touch with the University of Wales on the question of recruitment.

Mr. Paget: Ought not this Question to have been addressed to the Colonial Secretary?

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Radiostrontium

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what advice he has been given on the pollution of soil and green herbage by the fall-out of radiostrontium; what has been the maximum and minimum fall-out in hill country as compared with the presence of radiostrontium before the Bikini test; and for how many years it is estimated that fall-out will continue even if no more bombs are exploded;
(2) what tests have been made of milk for the presence of radiostrontium in different parts of England and Wales; and what results have been noted;
(3) whether he will give the figures for strontium 90 activity in sheep bones for Cwymstwyth, Wales, in March, 1955, and October, 1955.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): The information required by the hon. Member is contained in two reports by the Atomic Energy Research Establishment—"Radio-strontium Fall-out in Biological Materials in Great Britain", and "Radiostrontium and Radiocaesium Measurement in Biological Materials to December, 1956." Copies have already been placed in the Library of the House.

Dr. Stross: Is it fair to say that in certain areas the fall-out has been very heavy indeed compared with others? If that be the case, and if the content found in animal bones is many hundred times higher than that found in human bones, will the hon. Gentleman ask the Minister whether words such as "negligible" or "slightly higher than normal" are really applicable to those bad areas compared with the normal ones?

Mr. Godber: I would agree that there is considerable variation in the figures, as the hon. Gentleman has said, but even the highest figures are really comparatively low in relation to, for instance, the levels which are accepted by the International Commission for Radiological Protection as the maximum permissible concentration for workers who are in contact with these substances. I realise the dangers. but we have to keep a sense of proportion.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that there is a good deal of public concern in Wales about the matter? Does he appreciate that it is a matter of the greatest importance for the area, part of which is a very important tourist area, and that alarm might be caused there? Ought not a full statement to be made as soon as possible to explain the position?

Mr. Godber: Naturally, I recognise what the right hon. Gentleman says, but there is no question of any danger to tourists— none whatever. The only possible dangers that could arise would be in a slow build-up over a long period. The case cited has been that of the bones of sheep, and there is no question of anybody eating the bones.

Mr. Griffiths: Can the hon. Gentleman make a categorical statement that neither food nor water is in any way contaminated?

Mr. Godber: I can certainly do Chat. At present there is no question of any danger in respect of either water or food.

Dr. Stross: As the matter is of very great importance, and as it is very difficult to get suitable answers in this way, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Slaughterhouses

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to bring forward regulations prescribing standards for slaughterhouses under existing powers; and if he will now inform the House when he will introduce legislation to implement the Government's long-term policy for slaughterhouses.

Mr. Godber: The necessary regulations cannot be made under existing powers. My right hon. Friend proposes to seek additional powers in the legislation to which my hon. Friend refers; this will be introduced immediately time can be found in the Parliamentary programme. Meanwhile, as a guide to those planning to build or improve slaughterhouses, my right hon. Friend hopes shortly to publish drafts of regulations to prescribe certain of the proposed standards.

Mr. Hill: Can my hon. Friend confirm that between the promulgation of the forthcoming regulations and their enforcement reasonable time and opportunity will be allowed to make good any defects in existing slaughterhouses vis-í-vis the new regulations?

Mr. Godber: I should think that there is no doubt about that. The whole thing will take us some time, and we have not yet even got to the legislation. I should say that there is no real danger there.

Mr. T. Williams: In view of the urgency of the problem, may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is fully appreciative of the tremendous losses to producers and/or the Treasury through a failure to make the maximum use of by-products from the utterly inadequate existing slaughterhouses?

Mr. Godber: I fully agree that there is a great need to conserve the byproducts. We are very much alive to the problem, and hope to make some progress next Session.

Eggs

Mr. F. Willey: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a further statement on the export of eggs.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will now state the arrangements made with Denmark concerning export of British eggs to Continental countries.

Mr. Godber: I would refer the hon. Member and my hon. Friend to the information which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on 23rd May.

Mr. Wiley: Is the hon. Gentleman ware that that information was available when I tabled the Question? We require the information which was promised. When will the hon. Gentleman tell us what effective action is being taken by the Government to stop all this stupidity?

Mr. Godber: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means by "all this stupidity". At the moment exports of eggs are negligible, the change in the price ratio having almost eliminated them. However, we are pressing ahead, and shall be consulting the Danes again in the very

near future. My right hon. Friend has given categorical assurances on this point.

Mr. Nabarro: While not in any way wishing to associate myself with the allegation that the Minister is stupid in this matter, might I ask my hon. Friend whether he is aware that in his Answer on 23rd May, he said:
 Discussions with the Danish Government took place earlier this week. "…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1957; Vol. 570, c. 1390.]
That is a matter of ten days ago. In view of the implications of this export trade, surely we are entitled to know exactly what took place and what decision was reached.

Mr. Godber: I cannot add anything at the moment. We are trying to find the most satisfactory method of dealing with this rather intricate problem. We shall be talking to the Danes again in the very near future, and until we have done that I cannot add anything to what has been said.

Mr. Wiley: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether or not we have yet satisfied the Danes? Can he also say whether further discussions are being pursued, because the matter is still unsettled?

Mr. Godber: So far as I am aware, the Danes are at the moment quite satisfied with the assurances that we have given.

Mr. Nabarro: But can we continue exporting eggs? That is what I want to know.

Mr. Chetwynd: Let us export Nabarro.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the total estimated cost of the subsidy to producers of shell eggs for the 52 weeks of 1957, including the estimated cost of £26·3 million in respect of the first 16 weeks of the year.

Mr. Godber: The cost of the subsidy on shell eggs for the first three months of 1957 was just over £20 million. As regards subsidy estimates for the 1957–58 financial year I regret that I cannot add to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend on 23rd May.

Mr. Nabarro: But that reply included a figure of subsidy at the rate of Eli million per week. Is it the intention of the Ministry to continue countenancing


a system whereby the producer gets an average of 4s. 1d. a dozen for his eggs. but which enables housewives to buy them in the shops at an average of 2s. 6d a dozen? Why should not the full economic price be paid in the shops for this food?

Mr. Godber: I am sure that my hon. Friend will realise that there is an important seasonal aspect in this matter. While the figure of fl½ million was perfectly correct in the context in which he used it, it does not represent the picture over the whole year. I realise that the cost is extremely high. My right hon. Friend has answered Questions indicating his concern about that and the action which he thinks may be necessary for the future. I do not think that I can add to that.

Mr. Willey: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say when it is likely that there will be a Supplementary Estimate about this matter?

Mr. Godber: I could not give a date without notice, but it will not be in the immediate future.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food by how much United Kingdom shell egg production has risen during the first 20 weeks of 1957, compared with the two preceding years; the additional cost of the subsidy in respect of that period, compared with the two preceding years; whether flocks of hens are continuing to expand; and, in addition to export of British eggs to Western European countries, what steps

—
First 20 weeks of 1955, 1956 and 1957


1955
1956
1957



'000 boxes (360 eggs)


Packing station throughput of first quality hen eggs
6,782
7,205
9,098 (estimated)


Percentage increase in 1957 over:


(a) 1955
—
—
34 per cent.


(b) 1956
—
—
26 per cent.


Approximate cost of subsidy
£9 million
£8½ million
£28½ million

he has in hand to encourage egg consumption in the United Kingdom, having regard to the growing impetus of enlarged production.

Mr. Godber: As the reply to the first two parts of the Question contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The Answer to the third part of the Question is that the average population of laying fowls is expected to be slightly higher in 1957 than in 1956; as regards the last part, I understand that the Egg Marketing Board, which, as already announced, is to assume responsibility for the marketing of eggs on 1st July, already has this clues-Hon under active consideration.

Mr. Nabarro: What are we to do with all the surplus eggs if the hen population continues to rise, if there are far too many eggs for the population of this country to consume, and if my right hon. Friend artificially puts a stop on the export of eggs? What are we to do with them?

Mr. Godber: I have already said in reply to an earlier Question that exports were negligible before any question of stopping them arose. The subsidy for eggs is dropping substantially, and I do not accept my hon. Friend's contention that the ceiling of consumption has been reached. I very much believe that further consumption can be stimulated.

Mr. Nabarro: They are all thoroughly egg-hound at the Ministry.

The following is the information:

Milk

Mr. Wiley: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the average daily consumption of full price fresh milk for the months of March and April, respectively.

Mr. Godber: It is provisionally estimated to have been 3·51 million gallons in March and 3·48 million gallons in April in the United Kingdom. My right hon. Friend very much regrets that in his supplementary answer on 20th May, in denying the hon. Gentleman's allegations that there had been a substantial reduction, he inadvertently said that there had been no reduction.

Mr. Willey: Might I tell the hon. Gentleman how very much I appreciate the apology that he has made on behalf of his right hon. Friend? As his right hon. Friend said, before he made the inaccurate statement, that I was "off the beam," am I right in assuming that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that he himself was "off the beam"?

Mr. Godber: I do not think that I had better give that assurance on behalf of my right hon. Friend. I am sure that my right hon. Friend is always "on the beam," but it seems that this time the beam was a little "off target."

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what reason he ascribes the fall in the sales of liquid milk of 6·13 million gallons in the year 1956–57.

Mr. Godber: Mainly to the fact that 1956 was a Leap Year. Nearly 4 million gallons were consumed on 29th February, 1956.

Mr. Beswick: Is not the hon. Gentleman deluding himself? Has there not been a consistently steady fall for some time, and has not the fall during the last year tended to be even greater? Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the real reason is the increase in the price of milk? In that case, may we see a reversal of the process of cutting the subsidy?

Mr. Godber: The reason is exactly as I have said. The bulk of the reduction to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention was caused by the fact that there was an extra day in February, 1956—

Leap Year. There has been a reduction, but it has been very small. I would also point out that the price of milk went down again on 1st April this year.

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why more than 2 million gallons of skimmed milk are being thrown away by the Milk Marketing Board every week; and what action he is taking in the matter.

Mr. Godber: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) on 23rd May.

Mr. Lipton: Many excuses for the alleged glut of milk are made, but has the Parliamentary Secretary taken note of the fact that but for the considerable drop in fresh milk consumption, to the extent of millions of gallons a month, there would not be a glut at all? There is a relation between the drop in consumption of milk by the public and the glut of which people rightly complain.

Mr. Godber: It is important to have our facts right. It is no use building up a glut by a form of words. The hon. Member has spoken of more than 2 million gallons of skimmed milk a week being thrown away. In fact, in no single week in this current year or in any year has that figure been reached. I agree that the figures are considerable and we must not detract from them, but in fact no whole milk of any sort has been thrown away and at present the wastage of skimmed milk has almost stopped for this season.

Mr. du Cann: If surplus milk is being thrown away, whatever the quantity, could it not be made available through the United Nations Children's Fund for children suffering from mulnutrition in the British Empire and other countries?

Mr. Godber: While sympathising with that view, I would add that we have to look at the matter practically. This is skimmed milk, the value of it is not very high, and the difficulties of transportation make the suggestion out of the question.

Mr. Willey: When such huge quantities of milk are being poured down disused pits and quarries, are adequate steps taken to safeguard public health?

Mr. Godber: So far as I am aware, there is no question of danger to public health arising, but I will look into that aspect.

Artificial Insemination Stations (Beef Shorthorn Bulls)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what arrangements he is making for the use of beef shorthorn bulls at artificial insemination centres in England and Wales, in view of their value for crossing purposes.

Mr. Godber: Operators of artificial insemination stations are now permitted to use beef shorthorn bulls subject to approval in the same way as bulls of other breeds.

Mr. Turton: While I congratulate my hon. Friend upon the wisdom of that decision, in which I am personally interested, may I ask whether he can say at how many centres advantage is being taken of this option?

Mr. Godber: So far as I am aware, no requests have yet been made in England for approval of beef shorthorn bulls, but, of course, as and when requests are made, they will be considered.

Mr. Paget: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I heard his Answer with considerable alarm? It was always the policy—a desirable policy, I think—to establish direct the milking reputation of shorthorns obtained by artificial insemination. Is it not highly desirable that beef insemination should come from colour marking breeds?

Mr. Godber: That is a view which has been held for a long time. I think that a good deal more is understood about the matter now. Particularly with the need for increased emphasis on beef, I do not think that this is at all an undesirable development. I believe that there are great opportunities here.

Mr. Turton: Is it appreciated that if one wants to obtain a satisfactory cross with an Ayrshire, one has to use a beef shorthorn bull?

Rabbits

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further evidence he has of the return of

rabbits in various districts; to what extent, and in which districts, myxomatosis is still a killing disease; and what progress is being made with the development of a humane rabbit trap which has been proved effective and which can be sold at a reasonable price.

Mr. Godber: Latest reports on the rabbit situation show little change since the reply given to my hon. Friend on 18th April last. Lethal outbreaks of myxomatosis have occurred recently in Bedfordshire, Hampshire, Suffolk, Sussex, Westmorland, Wiltshire, Merionethshire, and Pembrokeshire; and the disease, though dying out, still exists in parts of Lancashire and of the West Riding of Yorkshire. My right hon. Friend is expecting a further report from the Humane Traps Advisory Committee within the next few months.

Mr. Hurd: Are county pest officers getting enough adequate reports where rabbits are appearing again, so that they can pinpoint where they will have to carry out campaigns when conditions are right?

Mr. Godber: Yes, Sir. I think that we are getting the information all right. It is the question of being able to kill the rabbits which is more difficult.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: While accepting my hon. Friend's answer to that question, may I ask whether he would not agree that a certain time has elapsed since the last Answer on the subject was given by his Department; and does he also agree that the rabbits have not been idle during that time?

Mr. Godber: I certainly agree with the last part of that supplementary question.

Imported Meat and Livestock (Diseases)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the conclusions which he has reached on the representations made to him by the Royal Agricultural Society of England urging, in the interest of British stockbreeders and taxpayers, the need for more effective measures to check the introduction of such diseases as foot-and-mouth disease, sheep scab, and anthrax through imported meat and livestock.

Mr. Godber: So far as foot-and-mouth disease is concerned, discussions are proceeding with the Argentine authorities about the suggestion that animals slaughtered for the supply of meat to this country should undergo a period of quarantine. As regards sheep scab and anthrax, my right hon. Friend is satisfied that it would not be practicable to impose further statutory safeguards, but representations have been made to the Governments of Northern Ireland and of the Irish Republic about the eradication of sheep scab in those countries.

Mr. Hurd: I welcome that Answer, but are we making it clear to our friends in South America that if they want to continue to enjoy the use of the British market they must be able to: give their produce a clean bill of health?

Mr. Godber: Yes, it is a very imporportant point, and I know that my right hon. Friend was very glad to have the views of the Royal Agricultural Society on this matter when representatives of the Society came to see him. Our officials in the Argentine are very much alive to this and we are impressing it on the Argentinians.

Mr. T. Williams: Are we still exporting to South America vaccines for use for animals to be exported?

Mr. Godber: I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would put down that question.

Food Prices

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the fact that the recent price increases on meat, sugar and other commodities are offset by seasonal reductions in others thereby maintaining an even cost-of-living index figure, what steps he has considered by way of price control or otherwise to effect a standstill over these prices when the seasonal reductions end.

Mr. Godber: I do not accept the hon. Lady's assumptions, and I have nothing to add to the replies given to her on 23rd May.

Mrs. Mann: Does the hon. Member realise that these assumptions are based upon his own assumptions, contained in the reply which he gave me last week, in which he told me that the increases due

to the Suez crisis were being offset by seasonal reductions, and that the reductions will fluctuate? Will he tell his right hon. Friend that it is time he stopped lecturing women about indiscriminate shopping and attended to his own business?

Mr. Godber: I am sorry that the hon. Lady does not like being lectured, and I will try not to lecture her. I would remind her, however, that reductions in the prices of food are taking place even at the present time. In the last week prices of bread and tea have both fallen. The hon. Lady should be grateful, as I am sure the housewives are, for the fact that these reductions are taking place.

Oral Answers to Questions — FORESTRY COMMISSION

Timber Marketing

Mr. Vane: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether his attention has been drawn to paragraph 89 of the Watson Committee's Report on Timber Marketing, which relates to the high cost of transporting timber; and to what extent this is found to be affecting the profitability of the Forestry Commission's less accessible plantations.

Mr. Godber: My right hon. Friend has noted the paragraph to which my hon. Friend refers. There are so many factors affecting the prices which the Forestry Commission receives for thinnings, which form the bulk of its current production, and markets are so varied, that it is not possible to determine precisely the effect on price of distance from any particular market.

Mr. Vane: Will my hon. Friend ask his right hon. Friend to get in touch with the Forestry Commission particularly to investigate this matter of prices in the remote districts, especially on the West Coast of Scotland? If he does, he will be rather alarmed and will not again give such a complacent Answer.

Mr. Godber: I am sorry if my hon. Friend thought that my Answer was complacent, but I can assure him that my right hon. Friend is keenly interested in this matter and will certainly take note of the points my hon. Friend has made.

Plantations (Planting)

Mr. Vane: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will give an assurance that when acquiring land for the Forestry Commission to plant, he will do so on the understanding: hat whole farms should not be planted except in the rarest cases, but rather than planting should be planned so that the neighbouring agricultural land is sheltered and improved in other ways.

Mr. Godber: In practice it is seldom possible or desirable to plant a whole farm. and in every case the acquisition of the land for forestry and its allocation between forestry and agriculture is agreed between my Ministry and the Forestry Commission. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Forestry Commission is very much alive to the importance of planning its plantations to the advantage of neighbouring agricultural land.

Mr. Vane: Will my hon. Friend ask his right hon. Friend to include some such paragraph in the speech which he may make in the country, in an area like the Towy Valley, which is still remembering the game of grab which right hon. Gentlemen opposite tried to play? Will he put an end once and for all to the idea that forestry and agriculture are mutual enemies in the hill lands, and point out that they should be partners working to their mutual advantage?

Mr. Godber: I fully agree with the latter part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, and I shall bring his request with regard to the first part to the notice of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. T. Williams: Is the hon. Member aware, in regard to the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane) about the gospel of grab in the Towy Valley, that the Towy Valley owners of that land have readily sold it freely to the Forestry Commission?

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Coventry

Miss Burton: asked the Minister of Labour what were the unemployment figures in Coventry up to the latest convenient date in May; and what proportion this bears to the figure for April.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. lain Macleod): Two thousand, two hundred and fifty-four males and 870 females on 13th May. The total of 3,124 showed a decrease of 12·3 per cent. compared with 15th April.

Miss Burton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am very glad to hear these figures? Does he realise that I keep pressing him upon this matter because some of the underlying trends are rather disturbing? Taking Armstrong Siddeley alone, is he aware that 250 workers' notices expired on 22nd May and that that figure has now grown to to 535? Do the consultations that he is having with the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Supply envisage any plans in advance for dealing with these men?

Mr. Macleod: The Armstrong Siddeley discharges come outside the scope of the Question and are not within the figure for 13th May to which I have referred. Naturally the consultations, which I have mentioned many times in the House, cover all changes in the defence programme.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: Is not the hon. Lady doing no good to Coventry by suggesting that there is heavy unemployment in that area when the opposite is the case and, in point of fact, that town is doing very well indeed?

Mr. Macleod: I am bound to say that I sometimes find difficulty in recognising the facts about Coventry in the clothes in which the hon. Lady dresses them.

Miss Burton: May I reply to that? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Is the Minister aware that the figures that I have given him are absolutely correct? If the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) would like to go to Coventry, and to Armstrong Siddeleys, he would find that they are completely verified and that the clothes that I wear in which to present them are very acceptable to Coventry.?

Miss Burton: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the number of vacancies for men and women notified to Coventry Employment Exchange on 10th April was 816 and if he will give the number for the latest convenient date in May.

Mr. lain Macleod: The figure for April was as stated by the hon. Member. The corresponding figure for 8th May was 867.

Miss Burton: Does the Minister remember that on 14th May he told me that about 200 men out of the 250 out of work would not get jobs locally or within daily travelling distance? As that number has now increased to 535, does he suggest that all these men will have to leave Coventry, or are these continuous consultations going to bring work to the locality?

Mr. Macleod: I did not suggest that at all. The Question asked for the facts about vacancies, which I have given. The vacancies over the last few months have increased in Coventry and the surrounding area. That is something which I am delighted to see. So far as the other part of the supplementary question is concerned, that is part of the consultation that goes on. and we notify, not only to Coventry but to all the other threatened towns, vacancies over a very wide area of the country.

Mr. Usborne: Does the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.Colonel Bromley-Davenport) think that if he applied to Armstrong Siddeley for a job he would get it?

Sir P. Agnew: Is it not a fact that some of these men who are now unemployed in Coventry have been in the motor and other trades for only a comparatively short time, and that their arrival in Coventry during the temporary high development of the motor trade has been at the expense of the full maintenance and development of many agricultural areas in the west Midlands?

Mr. Macleod: It is quite true that over a period of years, until the boom conditions disappeared a year ago, there was an enormous influx of labour into Coventry. It leaves us with something of a problem when those boom conditions change into more seasonal conditions, as, perhaps, has recently happened in the motor car industry.

Miss Burton: On a point of order. May I, through you, Mr. Speaker, inform the hon. and gallant Member—

Mr. Speaker: I am not a channel for information between hon. Members. It would be better if the hon. Lady notified the hon. and gallant Member afterwards.

Hungarian Refugees

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Minister of Labour how many Hungarian refugees have found employment in this country since October, 1956; and how many of these have been employed in coal mining.

Mr. lain Macleod: Nearly 12,000 Hungarian refugees have been placed in employment, other than coal mining. This total includes refugees who were placed in temporary employment, but have since emigrated to Canada, and the actual number now at work is somewhat less.
I am informed by the National Coal Board that 218 Hungarians have already commenced work in coal mining and that a further 115 are employed in ancillary occupations.

Mr. Johnson: Have any of these refugees been given training in coal mining since they have been over here and then been unable to find employment? If so, what is the reason?

Mr. Macleod: They were brought over here with the idea of having training. which includes, in the wider sense, the learning of English and the various safety and other methods that we have in coal mining. I am told by the National Coal Board that at present about 200 people who have been trained are available for work in the pits but for various reasons cannot yet find work. Consultations are going on between the Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers in regard to that matter.

Leyton

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Labour how many men and women, respectively, in the Borough of Leyton are now registered as unemployed as compared with the same months in 1956 and 1955; how many of those now registered have been unemployed for longer than one week; and how many of these are wood workers or cabinet makers.

Mr. lain Macleod: As the reply includes a table of figures I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Sorensen: Can the Minister circulate at the same time the number of vacancies which have occurred but which have not been filled?

Mr. Macleod: I do not know whether I can get them in time to circulate with

NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED PERSONS ON THE REGISTERS OF THE LEYTON AND WALTHAMSTOW EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE AND YOUTH EMPLOYMENT OFFICES AT THE UNDERMENTIONED DATES


—
Males
Females
Total


Wholly unemployed
Temporarily stopped
Wholly unemployed
Temporarily stopped


16th May, 1955
…
446
143
119
12
720


14th May, 1956
…
506
213
169
48
936


13th May, 1957
…
646
79
211
26
962

Of the total of 962 unemployed at 13th May, 1957, 561 had been unemployed for more than 2 weeks. (The number who had been unemployed for more than one week is not known.) The number of persons last employed in the furniture and upholstery industry included in the total of 962 was 138.

An analysis according to duration of unemployment is not available for individual industries.

Scotland

Mr. Lawson: asked the Minister of Labour what percentage of Great Britain's unemployment was located in Scotland at mid-December in each of the years from 1950 to 1956.

Mr. lain Macleod: As the reply includes a table of figures I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Lawson: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether or not there is any sign in those figures of a trend in favour of Scotland? On a number of occasions he has said that there is a trend in favour of Scotland. Will he tell us if he sees such a favourable trend over a number of years?

Mr. Macleod: The graph goes up and down. It may comfort the hon. Member to know that the best percentage for Scotland-18·2 per cent.—was reached on 10th December, 1956.

Mr. T. Fraser: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Scotland's unemployment figure remains, broadly speaking, double the United Kingdom average, and that it remains double the

this Answer. If not, I will send them privately to the hon. Member.
Following is the reply:
Statistics are available only for employment exchange areas, and the figures for the Leyton and Walthamstow Employment Exchange area are as follows:

average in spite of the migration of large numbers of Scots over the Border?

Mr. Macleod: If I take the two years that I am given in the Question, what the hon. Member says is quite right about 1950, when his Government were in power. The figure of unemployment was 2·9 per cent. in Scotland and 1966·4 per cent. in Great Britain, which is rather more than double. Last year, on 10th December, it was 2·5 per cent. in Scotland and 1966·4 per cent. in Great Britain, which is a good deal better.

Following is the reply:

The table below gives the information desired.

Numbers of unemployed persons on the registers of employment exchanges in Scotland at the undermentioned dates expressed as percentages of the corresponding numbers for Great Britain


11th December, 1950
…
…
20·9


10th December, 1951
…
…
19·9


8th December, 1952
…
…
18·3


7th December, 1953
…
…
19·5


6th December, 1954
…
…
77·2


12th December, 1955
…
…
23·1


10th December, 1956
…
…
18·2

South-West Middlesex

Mr. Hunter: asked the Minister of Labour what progress he has made in finding alternative employment for those becoming redundant in south-west Middlesex as a result of the Electrical and Musical Industries merger and the removal of Kraft Food Products from that area.

Mr. lain Macleod: Action will be taken to help them obtain other employment when the workers to be discharged are known, but no notices have yet been issued by either of these firms.

Mr. Hunter: I thank the Minister for that reply, which promises to keep the matter under consideration. May I ask the Minister to consider that nearly 5,000 people will become redundant in these two firms; that dismissals will take place very shortly; and that the matter is causing grave concern locally?

Mr. Macleod: I appreciate that, but this is part of the Greater London area, and unemployment there is under 1 per cent. at present. Although there have been special redundancies with these firms—about 2,000 people were involved early last year—we have not found grave difficulty in the past in absorbing them fairly quickly. I see no reason, if we do our best, which of course we shall, why that should not be so again.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR TESTS

Mr. Strachey: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the appeal by two Commonwealth Prime Ministers, he will now suggest a simultaneous standstill of nuclear tests with appropriate controls, on the part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States of America and Great Britain, pending the conclusion of a disarmament agreement.

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an undertaking that, following the completion of the current series of nuclear bomb tests, no such further tests will be undertaken by Great Britain.

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether, following the recent British test explosion in the Central Pacific, Her Majesty's Government are now willing to consider a trial period during which nuclear test explosions would be suspended, so as to enable an effective system of control and inspection to be established for the purpose of enforcing an agreed ban of the hydrogen bomb.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I have nothing to add to the statements I have already made of the position of Her Majesty's Government on these matters.

Mr. Strachey: Cannot the Prime Minister tell us what is his real reason for refusing to make the simple statement that under appropriate controls we will stop these tests, if the other Powers will stop?

The Prime Minister: Her Majesty's Government have put forward proposals on nuclear tests which we hope will form the basis of agreement in the Disarmament Sub-Committee.

Mr. Henderson: About a month ago in the Disarmament Sub-Committee the Government proposed that a committee of experts be established to consider the best ways of limiting and supervising nuclear test explosions. Can the Prime Minister say whether that committee has been established, and if so, is it in operation?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir; we have put forward our proposals but they have not yet been accepted.

Mr. Hamilton: If the Prime Minister adheres to his original proposition that the continuation of these explosions strengthens our bargaining position, can he tell us where we shall be led by this argument? Are we not to foresee any cessation of these explosions, and can we therefore be given an answer to the question about what is the information of the Government on how many megaton test explosions there have been since the original publication of the Medical Research Council Report?

The Prime Minister: I should like notice of the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. With regard to the first part, I repeat that we have put forward our proposals and we hope that they will prove acceptable.

Mr. Strachey: Are we then to conclude that the Prime Minister is not in favour even of all-round simultaneous nuclear disarmament and that he has given no lead in that direction? Does he not agree that the effect on the rest of the Commonwealth is very bad indeed, judging from the statements of Commonwealth Prime Ministers?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman has changed his question. He is now talking about nuclear disarmament. The question with which I was dealing was that about tests. On the question of tests, we have made our proposals and we believe them to be sound. The question of nuclear disarmament, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, is a wider question which is also being discussed in the Committee.

Mr. P, Noel-Baker: rose—

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether in the proposals which we put forward and about which he has spoken, there was any suggestion of any limitation of tests which we should make, whether of number, type or power, or is it the intention of the Government to go on making tests until we have caught up in knowledge with the United States and Russia?

The Prime Minister: It is not the intention of the Government to get into a position in which those Governments which have conducted sufficient tests can continue to make nuclear weapons. If we are to have disarmament it must be all-round disarmament.

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. For some time now during Question Time, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) has risen to his feet to ask a supplementary question—arid even before he has asked it—he has been greeted by sneers and jeers from hon. Gentlemen opposite. Some hon. Members on this side of the House are getting fed up with it, and we wish to know what control the Chair has in this matter. We give notice that if the Chair is unable to control right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, we shall select certain hon. Members on the Government Front Bench for similar treatment.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order for me. It is quite impossible for me to foresee outbreaks of noise from either side of the House. I can intervene only if they are sufficiently pro-ionized to enable me to do so effectively. Sir James Hutchison, Question No. 46.

Mr. Mellish: Further to that point of order. With respect, Mr. Speaker, it is the case that for some considerable time my right hon. Friend has been subjected to this barrage the moment he rises to his feet. The whole House knows about this and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you must do as well. I repeat again that surely such conduct, time after time, is not the sort of conduct that we are entitled to expect and that something should be done rather than that you should give the sort of Ruling which you have given?

Mr. Speaker: I cannot foresee what will occur every time. I think it would be rather invidious for me to rise, every time the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) wishes to ask a supplementary question. and ask for silence before any noise has been heard.

Mr. H. Fraser: Further to the point of order—

Mr. Gaitskell: Further to the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. While we can fully understand your difficulty in foretelling the kind of noises which are going to be made in this House, nevertheless I am sure you will agree that this custom to which my hon. Friend refers seems to have grown up. Would it not be possible for you to indicate your lisapproval of conduct of that kind?

Mr. Speaker: I have noticed that in the last few days there has been an outbreak of noise when the right hon. Member for Derby, South rises to ask a supplementary question. I also noticed at one time that the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) was generally greeted with a similar noise emanating from the opposite side of the House. I do, of course, strongly deprecate any outbreak of noise which interferes with the good order which the House should always maintain. Sir James Hutchison.

Mr. H. Fraser: Further to that point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I have dealt with the point of order which has been raised. If the hon. Member has a new point of order to raise, I will listen to him.

Mr. Fraser: My only point of order is that the chief cause for this outbreak


of tumult is undoubtedly that the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) made a violent attack in his book upon the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker).

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is now straying very widely from the business. Sir James Hutchison, Question No. 46.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUNGARY AND CZECHO- SLOVAKIA (RAW URANIUM)

Sir J. Hutchison: asked the Prime Minister whether Her Majesty's Government will make an offer to Hungary and Czechoslovakia to purchase raw uranium from those countries.

The Prime Minister: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority expects to draw its uranium supplies from Commonwealth sources. It doubts whether the countries mentioned could supply uranium in the form in which it wants it, but it would be ready to examine any specific offer which guaranteed continuity of supply.

Sir J. Hutchison: Is not the position that Russia has been taking from these countries the supplies of uranium which are mined there and under-paying for them? If therefore we made such an offer, and it was accepted, we should have the satisfaction, and so would the countries concerned, of receiving and supplying the uranium. If, on the other hand, the offer were refused, it would at least show these countries that they are being underpaid for the uranium which is being mined, and would increase the dissatisfaction between them and Russia?

The Prime Minister: I realise what my hon. Friend has in mind. There are some technical difficulties because the Authority buys uranium as a chemical concentrate, and so far as we are aware, Hungary and Czechoslovakia export it as a raw ore. But apart from that difficulty, I do not think there is very much hope of obtaining supplies from the countries under the control of Russia.

Oral Answers to Questions — RADIOSTRONTIUM

Mr. D. Howell: asked the Prime Minister what advice he has received from his medical and scientific advisers about

the fact contained in the Report of the Atomic Energy Research Survey that the bones of a still-born child in Carlisle contained about seven times as much radio-strontium as that found in older people examined at about the same time.

The Prime Minister: The heavier concentration of radiostrontium in the bones of children compared with adults was fully considered in the Medical Research Council's Report. It was for this and other cognate reasons that the maximum permissible level of radiostrontium in the human skeleton accepted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection was regarded as being too high for the general population. The Medical Research Council considered that the maximum concentration of radio-strontium in the bones of the general population, with its proportion of young children, should not be greater than a tenth of the maximum permissible level for adults in special occupations.

Mr. Howell: Is it not disturbing to find such quantities of strontium in a baby that has neither breathed nor fed? Because of this unique factor in human experience, because the Report to which the Prime Minister has referred shows that babies up to one year of age already have 1·2 units of strontium, and because of the growing medical and scientific perturbation about this, will not the Prime Minister refer this matter specifically to his advisers for further very careful scrutiny?

The Prime Minister: Of course, this is a matter which must be continually borne in mind. I would point out that, in the case mentioned, the figure was 0·45 units. That is still a hundred times less than the average allowable level of the amount of radiostrontium in the bones both of children and adults.

Mr. Gaitskell: The Prime Minister has promised, I think more than once, to consider inviting a further report from the Medical Research Council. Would it not help to clarify our minds on all these matters if we could have a further report? Has the right hon. Gentleman made up his mind to get that?

The Prime Minister: Yes, and when it comes I hope that it will be given the weight that is due to it.

Business of the House

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 3RD JUNE—Report stage of the Housing and Town Development (Scotland) Bill.

Committee and remaining stages of the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Bill [Lords].

TUESDAY, 4TH JUNE—Supply [17th Allotted Day]: Committee.

Debate on Racial Policy in the Central African Federation, Kenya and Tanganyika.

WEDNESDAY. 5TH JUNE—ading of the Housing and Town Development (Scotland) Bill until 7 o'clock.

Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the Rent Bill.

Committee and remaining stages of the Solicitors Bill [Lords], and the Dentists Bill [Lords], which are consolidation Measures.

THURSDAY, 6TH JUNE—Third Reading of the National Health Service Contributions Bill.

Second Reading of the Superannuation Bill, and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.

Consideration of the Motions to approve the Eggs (Guaranteed Prices) Order, and the Draft Fertilisers (United Kingdom) Scheme.

FRIDAY, 7TH JUNE—It is proposed to adjourn for the Whitsun Recess until Tuesday, 25th June.

May I add, Mr. Speaker, a short statement on the Shops Bill, which has recently come down from another place? At this stage of the Session the first claim on the time of the House must necessarily be the essential financial business and the concluding stages of the legislation, including urgent Bills recently introduced. It is clear, from studying the passage of the Shops Bill in another

place, that it would require prolonged discussion in this House, particularly in Standing Committee upstairs.

The Government have, therefore, come to the conclusion that it will not be practicable to proceed with it in the present Session.

May I also make a short statement on the order of Oral Questions? The House is aware that for some time there have been representations about further opportunities for asking Questions on colonial affairs.

After discussions through the usual channels, it has been decided to rearrange the order of Oral Questions. It is proposed that, after Whitsun, Colonial Office Questions should be answered twice weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of once only as at present, and that Questions to the Minister of Labour should be answered once a week on Wednesdays instead of twice weekly as at present.

In view of the much larger number of Questions put down to the Colonial Secretary than to the Minister of Labour, it is hoped that this change will commend itself to hon. Members.

As a consequence of these changes, it is proposed that the Attorney-General should answer on Tuesdays and the Secretary of State for War on Wednesdays.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement about the Shops Bill is completely at variance with many statements made by Government spokesmen in another place? Is it still the intention of the Government to implement the Gowers Report?
I have one other question on business. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we shall hope to have, indeed we feel that we must have, a debate on disarmament immediately after the Whitsun Recess? We would have wanted one this week had it not been represented to us by the Government that there would be great difficulty on their part, because of the present state of negotiations, in saying anything at all definite. In view of that, may I ask the Leader of the House to consult the Foreign Secretary and to see whether there can be produced for the convenience of hon. Members a White Paper, setting out the various proposals which have been put forward?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. We are obliged to the Opposition for accommodating us in the matter of not having a debate on disarmament next week. I will draw to the attention of my right hon. Friends who are chiefly concerned the question of the publication of a White Paper which might make the debate more valuable when it takes place.
In reference to the Shops Bill, I thought it my duty to make the position clear to the House. It is obvious, if we look at the long time the Bill has taken in another place, that there would not be a hope of getting the Bill through in the present Session. I could not give any undertaking about the future, because I could not anticipate the Queen's Speech for next Session.

Mr. C. Davies: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to a Motion standing in my name and the names of a great number of hon. Members relating to the much delayed meeting of the United Nations to consider the reform of the United Nations Charter? Could the right hon. Gentleman assure us that, as we obviously cannot have a debate on the matter before Monday—the United Nations meeting is to be held on Monday—awe can have the matter debated soon after we return from the Whitsuntide Recess? In the meantime, may I ask for a clear statement from Her Majesty's Government about the policy that they propose to put forward at that meeting on Monday?

[That, since the United Nations has decided to meet on 3rd June to discuss the problems involved in convening a Charter Review Conference, and since the reform of the Charter to strengthen the Assembly and Security Council and so place both in a position to command the confidence of all nations and ensure that their decisions will be respected and obeyed is desirable, this House calls upon Her Majesty's Government to propose the following alterations in the Charter, namely, that the United Nations should include as of right every Sovereign State, that the Charter shall define a Sovereign State, that should a dispute arise as to whether a State is entitled as of right to be a member the question shall be decided by the International Court at The Hague, that the United Nations Assembly shall be granted such new powers and authority as may be

necessary to enable it to form a directly recruited permanent United Nations Police Force and to seek the lease of such territories as may be needed to form permanent bases for this United Nations Force; that it is also the opinion of this House that such minor changes so made should lead eventually to the endowment of the United Nations with full power and authority in a defined and limited sphere to make, interpret and enforce world laws and universal national disarmament.]

Mr. Butler: I will draw the right hon. and learned Gentleman's request to the attention of the Foreign Secretary. I cannot give any undertaking about a debate after the Recess, but I will bear in mind the right hon. and learned Gentleman's request.

Mr. Nabarro: Is the Leader of the House aware that his statement announcing the demise of the Shops Bill will be greeted with enthusiasm by the shopping public, as well as by a large number of hon. Members on this side of the House?

Mr. H. Morrison: May I refer to the question put to the Leader of the House by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies)? Her Majesty's Government were invited to put forward ideas for amendment of the Charter of the United Nations. In the light of all sorts of events, the future of the United Nations is of great importance to our country. Would the Leader of the House therefore take into favourable consideration the desirability of an early debate on the organisation and future operations of the United Nations?

Mr. Butler: I always hesitate to answer policy questions at business time, but I realise the importance which the two right hon. Gentlemen attach to this matter. The general wish of the British Government for revision has been made clear. I will discuss this matter with my right hon. and learned Friend, and I will do my best to see that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen are given an opportunity to state their own views.

Mr. Padley: Since the Government have described the Shops Bill as a measure to improve the social and working conditions of the 2 million people who work in the distributive trades, does not


the right hon. Gentleman think it is a shameful thing that this House should adjourn for twice the length of the usual Whitsun Recess when urgent matters affecting the working population remain to be discussed? Is not this yet another betrayal of shop workers?

Mr. Butler: I sympathise with the sincerity of the hon. Member, whose speeches on the Shops Bill I have myself read. I was obliged to put before the House the stark facts of the situation. It would not make a difference even if we had one more week. We should not have a chance of getting the Bill through in time.

Mr. Padley: Why did not the Government bring the Bill in earlier?

Mr. Butler: Although the Bill was brought in at the beginning of the Session it has taken a great deal of time in another place. I recognise the sincerity of the hon. Member, but I cannot take the matter further.

Mr. Robens: Is it really the case that the Leader of the House cannot anticipate the Gracious Speech, in view of the fact that the Government have said so many times that they will implement the Gowers Committee Report? Is he not able at least to say that the Government will give favourable consideration to the reintroduction of legislation to implement the Cowers Committee Report next Session?

Mr. Butler: I cannot go further. The Gowers Committee's recommendations covered a very wide field indeed. In addition to shops, Part II of the Gowers Report includes very far-reaching suggestions for legislation which would take even more time than the present Shops Bill, which is largely concerned with regulating the hours of work in shops. It is the second part which deals with conditions in shops. I cannot go further than to say that the Cowers recommendations are, of course, of very great importance.

Dr. D. Johnson: Will my right hon. Friend find a day before the end of the Session to discuss the Report of the Royal Commission on the Law Relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency?

Mr. Butler: I have just received the Report. Affecting, as it does, so many

of our fellow citizens suffering from mental illnesses, I should like a little more time before deciding on a possible day for a debate on the subject.

Miss Bacon: As one who sat for a considerable time on the Gowers Committee, may I ask what use it is for hon. Members of this House and people outside to waste months of valuable time on such committees if the Government do not intend to take any notice of their recommendations?

Major Legge-Bourke: With reference to the Motion standing in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), may I ask my right hon. Friend not to assume that that Motion in any way reflects the majority opinion of this House?

Mr. Lee: Is the Leader of the House aware that his announcement that we are now to be prohibited from asking Oral Questions of the Minister of Labour on more than one day a week is viewed with grave concern? Is he aware that many of us are concerned about future levels of employment and the method by which transfers of people are taking place, and view with great concern this limitation of our opportunities to question the Minister on these important matters?

Mr. Butler: This arrangement about Oral Questions was made after consultation through the usual channels and after careful analysis of the numbers of Questions submitted to particular Ministers. On what may be described as the actuarial basis, it is right that the Minister of Labour, at the moment, should have one day. We are always proud, in this House, of being able to adjust our procedure to meet necessity and, if necessary, we can adjust it again.

Sir P. Agnew: In view of the questions addressed to my right hon. Friend about the Gowers recommendations, will he make clear that in the case of agricultural workers those relating to health, safety and welfare have already been implemented by a Conservative Government and are now the law of the land?

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether the decision to have two days for colonial Oral Questions is to be a permanent arrangement because a large number of Questions are


put on colonial matters? On the assumption that a large number of Questions may be down to the Minister of Labour, will there be a reversion to the present position? What is to happen then? Does he not regard the domestic issues which arise under the functions of the Minister of Labour as at least of equal importance to colonial matters?

Mr. Butler: Yes, certainly. I remember that when I was Minister of Labour there were a great many Questions. No doubt that was due to my handling of affairs, but, thanks to the efficiency of my right hon. Friend, those Questions have been largely reduced in number and now we have received a request from all quarters of the House—not from one quarter—to have more time for colonial Questions.

Mr. Gaitskell: Will the right hon. Gentleman make clear that this arrangement is not necessarily for all time and, in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), make it plain that it will be modified if, in fact, the number of Questions put changes considerably?

Mr. Butler: I am sure the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) will be grateful for the support of his right hon. Friend. I can reassure him in person that we shall readjust it if necessary.

Mr. Bellenger: In future, is the order of Questions to be decided by the volume of Questions put on the Order Paper? If so, does not the Leader of the House see where that might lead? Some hon. Members might like to have their full ration of Questions every day, as one hon. Member used to have before the war. Probably the right hon. Gentleman knows of the person, now deceased, to whom I refer. Such an hon. Member might decide to increase the volume of Questions to various other Departments. Therefore, ought we not to keep some sense of proportion in these matters, even though I recognise that once the usual channels have decided these matters they are settled?

Mr. Butler: In considering this matter with the aid of my right hon. and hon. Friends and of right hon. and hon. Members opposite, we looked at the

figures relating to Questions over the last three or four years and examined, in particular, the number asked of the Minister of Labour. I think that this arrangement is for the convenience of the House.

Mr. Ross: The Leader of the House will be aware that representations have been made quite often, in particular fairly recently, in respect of the need for greater opportunities for Scottish Questions. Has the right hon. Gentleman considered what would be the effect of this rearrangement on existing opportunities in respect of Scottish Questions on a Tuesday? Can we have the assurance that this is not just the first step and that, in future, Scottish Questions can be put as well as Questions to the Colonial Secretary on Tuesdays?

Mr. Butler: We analysed the Scottish Questions and found that in recent months they have been fewer than those for Departments to which Questions are asked twice weekly. We think that the arrangement will work out well.

Mr. J. T. Price: With reference to the Shops Bill, as no doubt the announcement of the Leader of the House will be greeted with digust and dismay by millions of shop workers, will he give further consideration to the statement he has just made, that there will not be sufficient time to get the Bill through before the end of this Session? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the innumerable precedents in the records of this honourable House by which Bills have been kept alive by a Motion tabled in suitable terms? In view of the repeated pledges to shopworkers given from the Front Bench opposite, following the publication of the Gowers Report, will he give an undertaking to consider agreed machinery to keep the Bill alive, as it has already been considered for some time in another place?

Mr. Butler: I cannot enlarge on the statement I have made. I made it after very careful consideration of the situation and cannot say any more.

Mr. Hamilton: Can the Leader of the House give us any enlightenment as to the fate of the Arundel Estate Bill [Lords]? Is he aware that there is great interest in


that Bill on both sides of the House? Can he give an assurance that it will not be treated any more generously than the Shops Bill?

Mr. Butler: The Arundel Estate Bill is a Private Bill and, therefore, I cannot make any statement on it myself. It must follow the usual Private Bill procedure.

Mr. Blenkinsop: With further reference to the publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on mental illness, will the right hon. Gentleman consider having a fairly early debate on it after the Recess, because of the importance of getting what, I think, will be a fairly unanimous view of the House on this vital issue and the need for the Government to press forward with its implementation?

Mr. Butler: Certainly. I will discuss that with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health.

Mr. P. Morris: Have the Government filed the recommendations of the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire in respect of the recommendation for a Secretary of State and other developments? That Report has been in the Government's hands for several months. If the Government attach importance to the Council, when are we likely to hear something about this Report?

Mr. Butler: We have not time at the moment. The Government attach great Importance to the Reports of the Council. Perhaps I might talk to the hon. Member about a possible opportunity.

Mr. S. Silverman: May I ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of his statement just now that the falling off in the number of Questions addressed to the Minister of Labour is due to the Minister of Labour's efficiency, he applies the same reasoning to the increase in the number of Questions directed to the Colonial Secretary?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. H. Morrison: I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he would like to answer that question. If not, may I ask a question arising out of the Arundel Estate Bill [Lords]? May we take it, as I presume we can, that the Whips will be off in relation to that Bill, as it is a Private Bill?

Mr. Butler: I am not at the moment in a position to make a statement further to that which I have made, namely, that the Bill will follow the usual Private Bill procedure. I have nothing to add to that.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Could the Leader of the House tell us whether he has observed the result of the Edinburgh, South by-election, in which it has been shown that the Government have not a majority to go ahead with the Housing and Town Development (Scotland) Bill? Is he now prepared to drop this Bill for the two days next week and to give the time to the Shops Bill?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. We are gratified by winning the by-election in question and we intend to go ahead with the legislation to which the hon. Member refers.

TRADE WITH CHINA (CONTROLS)

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to make a statement on China trade.
Discussions in the China Committee on controls on trade with China have taken place over the last three weeks. In the light of these discussions Her Majesty's Government have now considered their position. We intend to continue our established policy of co-operating with our friends and allies in a system of controls on trade with both the Soviet bloc and China in the mutual security interest.
As regards the detailed scope of the United Kingdom controls on trade with China, however, we have informed our associates that, in future, we shall adopt the same lists for China and the Soviet bloc. This decision will mean no change as regards items which are embargoed for both the Soviet bloc and China. But certain items now embargoed for China will either be transferred to the quantitative control list, or to the watch list, or completely freed. The necessary detailed arrangements will need to be discussed in the China Committee.
The Export of Goods Control Order will be amended accordingly as soon as that can be done. In the meantime, licences will be granted on request for all items now embargoed for China but not


subject to export licensing to the Soviet bloc. For items subject to quantitative control for export to the Soviet bloc it will not be possible to grant licences until discussions have been held in Paris about the size of quotas for China.
Exporters interested in any items which are not embargoed to the Soviet bloc should communicate with the Export Licensing Branch of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Younger: While welcoming the decision which has now been taken, may I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he is aware that it is not a question of discussions having taken place only over the last three weeks, but of their having taken place over three years and more? Making all allowances for the necessity for full discussion with our allies on this matter, does he not think that if an attitude of such rigidity is taken up in international discussions over so long a period it makes nonsense altogether of consultation? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make representations to our allies that we cannot be expected to wait so long without any kind of concession on future occasions?
Turning to the future, can he now give an assurance, after this very long delay, that there will not be substantial further delay before the question of the export to China of goods under quantitative control to the Soviet Union are settled, so that exports can start?

Mr. Lloyd: I think we have gone a very long way to try to preserve a common front in this matter. I hope that the matter of those quotas will be settled in the course of a few weeks.

Mr. Jay: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the other countries in the Paris Committee, apart from the United States, will now follow

the same policy as that of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Lloyd: They have not yet made their attitudes clear. I think they waited to hear what Her Majesty's Government had to say, but I expect that the majority of them will follow our example.

Mr. Drayson: Will my right hon. and learned Friend say whether the quantitative control will refer to quotas for each of the individual countries in Western Europe concerned, or whether the whole quota can be taken up by the United Kingdom if their prices are lower than those in the other European countries?

Mr. Lloyd: I think my hon. Friend had better put a detailed question such as that to the President of the Board of Trade. My impression is that in the quantitative controls both methods are used. In some cases it is a question of a quota which is divided up between various countries and in other cases the fixing of the quota is left to the individual country concerned.

Mr. S. Silverman: As, together with the hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. Drayson), I was among the earliest pioneers in this field, may I ask whether it would be possible for us to congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman on this belated if partial return to common sense?

Mr. Donnelly: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman again give consideration to the proposal that there should be a White Paper, so that the maximum knowledge is available as to how exporters should proceed in the matter of the new arrangements for trade with China?

Mr. Lloyd: I will certainly consider that. I think it might be a convenience if the Soviet bloc list, which will now be also the China list, were put in as succinct a form as possible.

Orders of the Day — WINFRITH HEATH BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.58 p.m.

The Paymaster-General (Mr. Reginald Maudlin): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The purpose of the Bill is very limited. It is to extinguish certain common rights which may exist in an area of Dorsetshire which is to be used by the Atomic Energy Authority for an extension of its Harwell establishment and to provide for suitable compensation, That is the total purpose of the Bill, and it goes no further. For example, it is not concerned with the question of preserving the amenities of the countryside. That is a matter of town and country planning legislation and the proper procedures have already been carried out in the case of Winfrith Heath. A public inquiry has been held and planning permission has been given.
Nor does the Bill confer any new powers of compulsory purchase of land. It is strictly limited to the extinguishing of these common rights, which may or may not exist, and the provision of compensation for them.
I think I should explain briefly why this is necessary, who will be affected and why we have adopted this particular and somewhat unusual procedure of introducing a hybrid Bill. The Atomic Energy Authority has decided that it must extend its Harwell establishment to a new site. As the House is well aware, Harwell is the foundation of Britain's advance in atomic energy. It is the establishment where all the basic research is carried out. It is expanding, and I am sure that we want to see it expand as rapidly as is practicable, but it is not possible to go any further on the Harwell site itself, for two reasons.
First, Harwell is already as large as can reasonably be managed in the number of personnel and the amount of work which is done there. Secondly, there is a definite limit on the amount of effluent which can be moved from Harwell into the Thames. It was, therefore, quite clear that any further extension would have to take place on a different site, and for some

time now the Authority has been looking for a new site.
It is, of course, very difficult to find a site that is suitable, because the conditions are rather stringent. It must be near to Harwell, because it is an extension of that establishment, and in order that people can travel easily from one to the other. It must be on soil which is adequate to sustain the great weight of the atomic reactors. It must be near to a very large supply of cooling water, which is needed for the atomic reactors, and it must also be sited in such a way as to enable the easy disposal of the radioactive effluent. In addition, of course, it is desirable to avoid the use of good agricultural land.
Obviously, all those conditions, taken together, mean that it is not easy to find a suitable site, and the Atomic Energy Authority, in consultation with the Government Departments concerned, looked for a long time, and considered, altogether, about 70 different sites, before deciding upon this one at Winfrith Heath. in Dorsetshire. As soon as the Authority had decided that this was the best site, it consulted the planning authority—the Dorsetshire County Council—other local authorities, and a number of other bodies, including the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Nature Conservancy, the National Farmers' Union, and many others. In addition, in June, 1956, the Dorsetshire County Council advertised in the newspapers locally, inviting people who objected to register their objections.
Application was subsequently made to the County Council, as planning authority, for planning permission to go ahead with this establishment. That permission was granted, but the County Council felt that, although it was entitled to give planning permission, the project involved such a large departure from the county plan that it should refer the matter to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. In turn, my right hon. Friend considered this to be a matter of national importance, and that, therefore, although the planning authority was prepared to approve, a public inquiry should be held.
A public inquiry was then duly held, at which the County Council and all the local authorities concerned—the borough councils and the district councils—


supported the proposal. As a result, my right hon. Friend, subject to certain conditions which will be fulfilled, gave planning permission to the Atomic Energy Authority. At that stage, therefore, all the necessary procedures had been gone through to obtain planning permission and, in fact, the project had received the active support of the duly-elected local authorities in the area.
It was at this stage that the question of common rights arose. It had not arisen before, because the Atomic Energy Authority was acting in the belief that there were no common rights on this stretch of land. It had two adequate reasons for thinking that. First, the question of common rights was never raised by any of the local authorities whom the Authority had consulted about the site. Secondly, the owners of the land, who are also the lords of the manor, said that they did not recognise any common rights as existing in that area. Moreover, I understand that such rights have not been exercised for a very long time, because the nature of the land itself is such that it is not suitable nowadays either for turf cutting or for the grazing of cattle.
At the inquiry, however—at which no commoners themselves at all were present to object—a document was produced by one witness. It was a conveyance, dated 1792, of a cottage, and referred to the existence of rights of common consisting of the right to graze three cattle and the right of common and turbary, which established that, at some time, common rights existed, although this particular document, I understand, did not set out the land to which the rights referred.
The document made it clear, however, that at some stage there were common rights on this particular piece of land, so, clearly, the Atomic Energy Authority had to do something about it. It instituted a search, and it was discovered that an award was made back in the eighteenth century which did set out certain common rights attaching, at that time, to certain properties in the area. Unfortunately. the map which was attached to the award of 1771 had been lost, and it is difficult, if not impossible, at this stage to trace who are the present owners of these common rights, if they are still in existence.
I think the House will agree that although it is impossible, or very diffi-

cult, to trace any such common rights, and although no objection has ever been made at the inquiry or to the Authority by any commoner, the Authority would be quite wrong to go ahead and put its establishment there without having taken proper steps to extinguish any common rights that may exist. There is, of course, the practical argument that it would be a pity to put up an atomic reactor and then have someone come along and say, "You must remove your reactor—it is in the way of my cow." It would also be uneconomic.
Seriously, however, it would be quite improper for anyone to go ahead in this way and to act as if common rights did not exist, when there is a possibility that they may. That being the case, the Authority thought it necessary to take steps to extinguish the rights—

Mr. J. T. Price: I am rather interested in this. Earlier in his speech, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was the intention of the Authority to take the proper steps to extinguish the rights if they exist, and to pay compensation for them. As the search for the owners of the common rights has proved abortive, to whom would compensation be paid in the event of the Bill passing into law?

Mr. Maudling: I think that if the hon. Gentleman will study the Bill, he will see that that is what it does.
The normal way of dealing with such a matter would be through the procedure of the Land Clauses Act, but the Authority was advised that this procedure would take from 12 to 18 months. It took the view, I think very rightly, that as this is a very important project, it would be quite wrong to hold up the construction work for a period of 12 or 18 months in order to go through the normal procedure for the extinguishing of these rights—which, in practice, do not appear to have been exercised for some time.
There was available to the Authority the alternative of this procedure of a hybrid Bill, which I am recommending to the House this afternoon. The purpose of this hybrid Bill is to do quickly what could be done otherwise only through the machinery of the Land Clauses Act. What we very much want to do is to get this Bill through Parliament in such time as to allow the Authority to start work on


the establishment this autumn, or this summer. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done—laying roads, laying drains and setting up water pipes, and the rest—and it is important to get as much of this work as possible done before winter sets in, and it seems that the only was to do that is by proceeding through a hybrid Bill such as this.
I have dealt with the three main points with which, I think, I ought to deal. First, what this is needed for, and why the rights have to be extinguished. Secondly, who is affected. It appears very doubtful whether anybody is affected—certainly, not much more than a handful of people. Thirdly, the reason that this procedure is adopted, which is simply that for the Atomic Energy Authority to accept a delay of 12 or 18 months would be, I think, quite clearly contrary to the interests of the nation.
The Bill itself is relatively simple. Clause 1 lays down that these rights of common, such as they are, shall be extinguished. Clause 2 enacts that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food shall appoint a valuer, whose job it will be to try to ascertain what common rights do exist in this area. He will start, obviously, from the eighteenth century documents, and by diligent search of such documents as he can lay his hands on he will try to establish what rights, if any, still exist.
He will publish those, and advertise for claimants, and when anyone makes a claim the valuer will assess to what compensation the claimant is entitled. All the decisions of the valuer, however, as to the nature of the common rights, or as to the amount of compensation to which anybody is entitled for those rights, will be subject to appeal to the Lands Tribunal, if either party wishes to appeal. Provision is also made for the Atomic Energy Authority to pay the cost of any claimants making claims of common rights through the procedure of the Bill.
I think, then, that it is fair to say that no commoner, as a result of the introduction of this Bill, could possibly be worse off than he would have been had the Authority used the more normal procedure of the Land Clauses Act. In fact, people will probably be better off, because if the valuer is very successful in his

search he may find a number of people possessed of common rights, of which at the moment they are quite unaware and for which they will receive compensation which otherwise they would not have expected.
The House is always very vigilant over any proposal to interfere with common rights. Indeed, it would be a pity if that were not so. That is why I ask, this afternoon, that the Bill should be regarded as an entirely necessary Measure to enable the advancement of our atomic energy programme.1have tried to set out the arguments. Harwell must expand, must go to a new site and this is the best new site. The project has the approval of the planning authority, there has been a public inquiry procedure and, it has the support of all local authorities in the area. This is a desirable project in the national interest.
At the last moment, it was discovered that there might be these ancient common rights which, in practice, have not been exercised, but which exist and which are rights of which the House must take cognisance. They have to be extinguished in the interests of establishing this expansion of the Harwell Atomic Energy Establishment and the only means of doing that, without waiting for a very long time, is by means of this Bill, which makes proper provision for the establishment of any claims which exist and for proper compensation to be paid for those claims.

4.11 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Last week, in the New York Times, Mr. Drew Middleton thought it desirable to give certain advice to Americans who would be visiting this country during the summer. He said:
 It is no good telling them that things in Britain are much better than you expected. The British are much happier when they think the country is going to hell in a handcart. If you praise the nuclear energy program, you will be told its plants spoil the view.
That is very much the spirit in which we are approaching the Bill this afternoon. Naturally, we shall not oppose it. We welcome it as new evidence of the development of atomic energy, but we feel it necessary, at the same time, in Mr. Drew Middleton's words, to say, "Look at the view." As Socialists, we are proud of the world leadership that


this State enterprise has already achieved, but, also as Socialists, we want to preserve the amenities of the British countryside for our people.
Before turning to the question of Winfrith Heath itself, there are certain general considerations which I should like to raise. In the first place, I should like to echo what the Paymaster-General said about the importance of commoners' rights. Those are rights which, presumably, have been held since time immemorial and which were, as the right hon. Gentleman himself reminded us, as it were codified in a document of 1771.
The right hon. Gentleman reminded us that we must be vigilant in matters of this kind and we certainly hope that the House will never treat with complacency any proposal for extinguishing rights of this kind. The existence of these rights means, other things being equal, that the people have an open space in perpetuity. We should, therefore, be very jealous of these rights and agree to extinguish them only after the most careful consideration.
There is one special criticism we want to make of the Government proceeding in this way at this time. It seems to us regrettable that a Government Department should come along with a Bill of this kind just at the time when a Royal Commission, appointed by themselves, is considering the whole future of commoners' rights and the commons of this country. Secondly, we regard the circumstances in which the Bill has been introduced as, at any rate, open to criticism. I was not completely satisfied with some of the explanations which the right hon. Gentleman gave.
I should have thought that if the Atomic Energy Authority had been more vigilant in the early days of this project, it should have been possible for it to discover the existence of these commoners' rights. Indeed, my information is that the Government themselves have known for a considerable time that a Bill of this kind would be necessary if the project was to go forward. The Minister of Housing and Local Government gave his planned approval to the scheme on 1st February, but it was only eight days ago that the Bill was presented to the House. The Committee reported on the Bill yesterday and today we have a Motion on the Order Paper in the name

of the Prime Minister saying that the petitioners against the Bill must submit their petitions to the House within the next five days.
That seems to me to be unnecessarily rushing the matter, especially when it is remembered that two of the next five days are a Saturday and a Sunday. I should have thought that there was no need for the Government to rush the matter in this way. It is vitally important that as a House we should pay the most scrupulous attention to the position of those people who might conceivably be adversely affected by the decisions we take. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) has tabled an Amendment to the Prime Minister's Motion which would have the effect of extending the period from five to fifteen days, and I plead with the Government that they will accept that Amendment.
To turn to the wider issues, this is a problem which is of much greater importance than just the future of Winfrith Heath itself. I understand that we are to have between 15 and 20 atomic power stations built over the next ten years. Work has already begun on two of them and, certainly, in both those cases there has been considerable opposition. I know very little about the position at Berkeley where one is being built, but I very much resent the fact that Bradwell was one of the sites chosen. There we are now seeing rising against the skyline a new atomic power station within a stone's throw of what is probably the earliest surviving Christian church in this country. It seems a pity that greater thought was not given to the project before it began to destroy one of the finest and most interesting skylines on the Essex coast. In the case of Hinkley Point, in Somerset—

Mr. Speaker: I doubt whether the Bill is a broad enough foundation for the considerations which the hon. Gentleman is now advancing to the House. The Bill concerns only Winfrith Heath and its commoners. While I do not want to be over-strict, we cannot discuss all the other power stations to which the Bill does not apply.

Mr. Greenwood: Naturally, I fully accept what you have just said, Mr. Speaker. The point I was making is


germane to the Bill and concerned the methods which the Atomic Energy Authority pursues in selecting sites of this kind. However, I have already made my point about the other sites in question and I turn now to the general application of the circumstances relating to Winfrith Heath.
I understand from what the Paymaster-General said, and from what I have read in the reports of the inquiry into the Winfrith Heath proposal, that the Atomic Energy Authority considered a number of sites before choosing Winfrith Heath. Colonel Raby, who is the Deputy Director of Engineering at Harwell, said that 50 sites were inspected before Winfrith Heath was chosen. Sir John Cockcroft, on the other hand, said that 70 possibilities had been investigated. It seems to us that in this matter we are putting a quite unfair burden upon the Atomic Energy Authority.
It is part of the Government's policy that these atomic energy establishments should be sited remote from built-up areas. In paragraph 37 of the White Paper, "A Programme of Nuclear Power" (Cmd. 9389), we read:
The reactors that will be built for the commercial production of electricity will present no more danger to people living nearby than many existing industrial works that are sited within built-up areas. Nevertheless the first stations, even though they will be of inherently safe design, will not he built in heavily built-up areas.
I appreciate that this is to be an experimental establishment, but I hope that before we conclude this debate a spokesman of the Government will he able to tell us how long a period must elapse before the Government and the Atomic Energy Authority are satisfied that these establishments can be built in more built-up areas and not in remote areas which are at present being selected.
I find it a little disturbing to read, in the Eighth Report of the Central Electricity Authority for the year ended—

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in relation to your Ruling a short time ago about the scope of this debate. There is nothing that the House wants to do more than to have a full debate on the amenity considerations involved in siting these great. Government establishments, their design and

every other aspect from the public point of view, but you have defined the debate to run narrowly. Would it be in order to appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, that at an appropriate time we might discuss these wider questions, when many more hon. Members might be present?

Mr. Speaker: I realise the importance of the considerations which the noble Lord has urged. Of course, it is not for me to arrange the debates of the House; I am here only to apply the rules of order. I can conceive of some considerations of amenity in so far as they affect the particular project which might well be in order, but I do not think that the Bill will stand a general debate on amenity considerations all over the country and in general. The purpose of the Bill seems to me to deal with the rights of the commoners.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: On that point of order, Mr. Speaker, it is of importance to some of us who might like to take part in the debate to get the position clear. Some of us would find difficulty in deciding our attitude to this proposal unless we have knowledge from the Government as to whether this procedure is to be applicable purely to this particular case and will not be used in other cases which may arise. That is bound to affect our view on this Measure. That kind of issue, it seems to me, would have to be raised by hon. Members.

Mr. Speaker: I have said—I think the House agrees with me—that the purpose of the Bill is to deal with certain common rights, providing for their extinguishment and compensation by a method which is peculiar to the Bill. I think it would be relevant to ask whether, in similar cases of common rights arising, this method is to be pursued. That, I think, would be proper for a Second Reading debate so that the House can judge what it is doing. That, however, applies only to commons and not to the general considerations.

Dr. Barnett Stross: May I have your guidance, Mr. Speaker? One of the reasons—perhaps the main one—why this establishment is to be sited in a location of this kind is that it is of an experimental nature and we suspect that possibly those who are responsible are unwilling to expose


a large mass of population to the possibility of risk. That being the case, is not amenity part of the argument and can we not discuss it, at least to a certain extent? It would appear that if the population at large is to gain, a few people must lose.

Mr. Maudling: Would it not be right to say, Sir, that as planning permission has been granted in this case, the procedures laid down by this House for the protection of amenities have been completed and the Bill is concerned only with the question of common rights?

Mr. Speaker: Was the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) raising the question of the siting of the station and its possible effects upon health?

Dr. Stross: Dr. Stross indicated assent.

Mr. Speaker: I do not know that that has much to do with the commoners. I do not, however, like to give hypothetical rulings. I want first to hear what is said.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I am sure you will recollect, Mr. Speaker, that one of the historic grounds on which Enclosure Acts were resisted in this House in the past was to preserve common lands in the interests of the health of the country.

Mr. Speaker: In so far as the Bill proposes to extinguish certain common rights, an hon. Member is entitled to argue that these rights should not be extinguished, or to speak in those terms. All I am concerned with is that we do not make this a peg on which to hang a general debate, either on atomic energy. which the Bill will not sustain, or on the other atomic stations all over the country.

Mr. J. T. Price: This is important, Mr. Speaker, in fixing the limits of the debate. The Minister, far from putting before the House a proposition which confers rights on commoners, is putting forward a proposition which will deprive a hypothetical bunch of unknown, undiscovered commoners of existing rights.
If the question is to be properly considered in proper perspective in any inquiries which are made, they must be

inquiries not only into the title of the people who once held or were purported to hold a title to common rights, but also into what happened in the case of the Enclosure Acts, a large number of which were carried through this House between 1760 and 1832 and many of which related to this part of the south-west of England. Surely, if an inquiry is to be conducted, we shall want to know how many of the people who are now tenants or occupiers and who may claim compensation under the Bill acquired their rights by enclosure of commons between 1760 and 1832.

Mr. Speaker: These are arguments on the merits of the Bill. They are not for me.

Mr. Greenwood: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, for your Rulings on those various points of order.
To refer for a moment to the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), it was a great pity that he did not find it convenient a week ago to attend the House to move the Motion about amenities which stood in his name. We all appreciate, however, the difficulties that he was having with his party at that moment and he has, of course, a great deal of sympathy from all of us.
The point I was making when those helpful points of order were raised concerned the wider aspects of the problem. I was saying that we appreciate the difficulties of the Atomic Energy Authority and would prefer that the responsibility for finding these sites did not rest on the Authority itself. We are anxious that if future establishments are always to be sited in remote parts of the country, we shall see a gradual erosion of some of our most beautiful areas.
In spite of what the Minister said about the local support that this proposition had received, I modestly suggest that, unfortunately, local opinion is not always the best guide in matters of this kind. The prospect of bringing new industry to an area, with additional employment and with revived prosperity in the shops and public houses, is a temptation that it is often difficult for a locality to resist. That is no doubt why, when the Winfrith Heath inquiry was taking place, the Welsh Economic Development Council,


the Monmouthshire County Planning Committee and the Penzance Chamber of Commerce all indicated that they would be delighted to receive the experimental atomic energy establishment if the Minister decided against it in the case of Winfrith Heath.
Our view is that these areas of remoteness and natural beauty have much more than a local significance. They are part of our national heritage and we believe that it is unfair on the Atomic Energy Authority to leave the choice to that body. The responsibility should rest upon the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who should prepare a nationwide plan, scheduling those areas in which development of this kind would be allowed. I think that if the Minister of Housing and Local Government accepted responsibility for that, it would be possible to avoid all the difficulties and all the damage to our amenities that will result unless we have a national plan of that kind.
If the Government can be persuaded to undertake a survey of that kind, it might be possible for them to consider using disused stone workings, quarries or other man-made depressions in the land to hide some of the detrimental effects which otherwise these establishments will have. We believe that in establishing a national plan of this kind, the Minister should have the advice of a national body of the calibre of the Royal Fine Art Commission.
Finally, if I may turn to the question of Winfrith Heath itself—and there is not a great deal that I wish to say on that point—it is, as I think all hon. Members in the House will know, the survivor of Thomas Hardy's "Egdon Heath". Although Hardy is not one of my favourite novelists, anything that went to make up his England must have a sentimental claim upon all of us.
It is true that Winfrith Heath has largely been spoiled by the activities of tanks from Bovington Camp, just as the village of Wool has largely been spoiled by the bungalow development which followed on the military occupation of the area. Nevertheless, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England did oppose the scheme at the inquiry, and when the Minister of Housing and Local Government communicated his decision as a result of the inquiry, he conceded

that Winfrith Heath was, as he called it, "remote, beautiful and unspoiled countryside." I wish that it had been possible to site this atomic energy establishment elsewhere.
After all, what will be comprised in the scheme? The atomic energy establishment will consist of six reactors, with process plants, office blocks and laboratories. In six years' time, it will employ 1,200 people, and ultimately double that number, and houses for 10,000 people will be needed. In addition, of course, there will be schools, shops and all the other paraphernalia of civilised life, and all that will be needed on a site of great natural beauty which is only three miles from what is the first unspoiled stretch of coast west of Ramsgate, and within three and a half miles of Lulworth Cove.
In "The Return of the Native", Thomas Hardy had this to say in the first chapter, writing of "Egdon Heath":
It had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await the last crisis—the final overthrow.
It is we today who are giving "Egdon Heath" the final overthrow by passing this Winfrith Heath Bill. It is not a very easy decision for any of us to take, and I hope that the Government, by accepting the suggestion which I have made for a national plan, will spare us from a similarly difficult decision in the future.

4.34 p.m.

Colonel O. E. Crosthwaite-Eyre: I think that when the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. A. Greenwood) complains about only five days' notice being given to petitioners he should remember that this was an alteration in procedure made by his right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), when he was Leader of the House during the time when his hon. and right hon. Friends were in control of the procedure of this House.

Mr. E Fletcher: The five days which he mentioned is a minimum period, and it is open to this House to decide how long the petitioners shall have in which to lodge their petitions. That is a matter with which we shall have to deal when the Amendment is considered. It is quite untrue to say that my right hon. Friend


the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) laid down any such monstrous proposal.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I think that perhaps I have been too short in what I said. The right hon. Gentleman reduced the period in the Standing Orders from a minimum of fifteen days to five days.
I wish to ask only one question, and it is whether my right hon. Friend will look again at Clauses 2 and 3 and consider whether he could not use the Land Clauses Act, rather than the new procedure. Personally, I think that Sections 21 and 32 of that Act would be a much better idea than this new system of a valuer, which my right hon. Friend proposes for the first time.
In regard to costs which may be incurred before the valuer, Section 34 of the Lands Clauses Act enabled all expenses and costs to be paid, whereas the proposal of my right hon. Friend is only in respect of reasonable costs. I shall have more to say in Committee, but I hope that these two points, which will be of value if any schemes are submitted, may form part of the amended Bill before we agree to part with it.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): Mr. Ede.

4.36 p.m.

Mr. Ede: Mr. Ede (South Shields) rose—

Mr. E. Fletcher: On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to the fact that there is nobody on the Treasury Bench who is competent to reply to this debate? The Paymaster-General, having spoken, has already exhausted his right to speak, and I shall certainly object to his speaking again. I think it is highly desirable that—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Ede: I wish to start by apologising in advance to whoever is to reply to the debate for the fact that I doubt whether I shall be able to be here, because I have to attend a meeting of the Committee of Privileges at a quarter past five. I dislike leaving the House having already spoken and not waiting to pay at least the courtesy of listening to anybody

who is to reply, and I hope that the House will believe that it is only because I am engaged on the duty of the House in another matter that I depart from my usual practice. It may be that there is sufficient interest in the Bill to keep the debate in progress until I am able to get back here, having discharged that duty.
I want to speak on behalf of the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, which has done me the honour of electing me its president. I want, first, to draw attention to the fact that there is really no excuse for the hurry with which this Bill is being brought before us. The fact that there were common rights in this common was made known at the inquiry which was held last year, when the Dorset Land Resources Committee produced the evidence which was cited by the Paymaster-General that there is in existence at least one document which preserves the right of common to the occupier of some cottage and land, which cannot at the moment be more definitely recognised. It is almost certain that, in an area of this kind if such rights exist in one cottage and one piece of land, other dwellings and other pieces of land also entitle the dwellers therein to the exercise of common rights over this tract of land.
Great tracts of land and open spaces have been preserved in this country by the existence of just these rights. In fact, when Burnham Beeches and Epping Forest were in jeopardy, the City of London, which, in those days, was a leading liberal community in the country, actually bought land having common rights so that, when enclosure was attempted, the City could appear as possessors of common rights to resist the enclosure that was contemplated. In fact, in the case of Epping Forest, it secured the throwing back into the common of all the land that had been enclosed within the twenty years previous to the hearing of the case in which the City was concerned. Therefore, it must be emphasised that the existence of these rights is a safeguard, not merely for the commoner, but for all the people who enjoy air and exercise upon the lands that are involved.
The hon. and gallant Member for New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) will know that the New Forest was preserved because it was discovered that there were


rights of common in vicinage, that is, a person who has rights in one common had the right of grazing his cattle on commons in adjoining parishes into which they might stray, because cattle could not recognise the dots which King Alfred placed upon the map when he divided the country into parishes. The non-recognition of subsisting rights of common by a Government or by a Government agency is really a great attack upon the privileges that all of us enjoy as a result of the existence of these rights.
If I am correctly informed—and I have taken the trouble to be sure that I am correctly informed—that the existence of these rights was disclosed last year at the inquiry, why do we have the Bill produced in this great hurry at this stage? I am certain that the House is anxious, as the Society whose opinions I am voicing is anxious, that all proper measures for the development of atomic energy in the country should be taken, but the Government should not presume on that to endanger the rights of quite poor people who may be in jeopardy if these rights are extinguished. Therefore., I hope that when it comes to the inquiry and the appointment of a valuer efforts will be made to find the pieces of land in which rights may subsist and also to find the persons who have the opportunity to exercise them.
I am not impressed when the Paymaster-General says that the lords of the manor did not recognise rights of common. That is the common habit of lords of the manor, because if they can only act on that assumption their power over the land is very considerably increased, compared with what it is while one single commoner remains. When I inspected the plans and associated documents, I noticed the names of the persons who claimed to be lords of the manor.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will note the form of words I use—"the people who claim" to be lords of the manor or representatives of lords of the manor. These names were fully set out, and these persons have had all the necessary notices. But I hope that the Government will feel that in this matter they have a duty to other people, less capable of employing legal assistance and surveyors and valuers, to see that it is made quite plain that any existing right will

be recognised and when extinguished will be paid for.

Mr. Maudling: The main purpose of Clause 2 is to carry out exactly what the right hon. Gentleman says.

Mr. Ede: I am very glad to hear that. I noticed when I inspected the plan that at least two of the Queen's highways appear to run across these tracts of land. Is it proposed to divert them and wipe out the rights of way? What action is proposed with regard to them? One of the roads that appears to run almost directly from east to west seems to run almost through the middle of the tracts of land that are proposed to be affected by the Bill. Is it proposed to divert the road or to extinguish the rights of way? If so, what process is proposed to be employed?
Nothing is said about that in the Bill. and in the documents that I inspected nothing was said about the highways either. If, for the moment, the highway running through the middle is to be maintained, I can see some excuse being found in the future for suggesting that, having these valuable buildings with all their processes in two curtilages instead of one. requires further applications with regard to the stopping up or diversion of the highways. We should be told at this stage what are the Government's intentions in that matter.
If somebody comes along and claims these rights, they not having been extinguished in the legal form which we are now proposing, the Paymaster-General said, in language that came very trippingly off his tongue, that the result would be obviously uneconomic. I was interested for a long time in one of the most valuable commons in the country, Epsom Downs. The existing grandstand was erected on part of the land which was still subject to rights of common. Epsom Urban District Council, of which I was chairman, had rights of common in that common.
When the Council drew attention to the fact that the grandstand had been put on land subject to rights of common, those concerned decided that the best and most economical rejoinder was to offer the Council a considerably greater tract of land adjoining the common, in compensation for the piece on which, the Council


was assured, one corner of the grandstand had been put quite inadvertently.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will assure us that in future, before any such tract of land as this is considered for an atomic energy station, efforts will be made at the very earliest stage to ascertain whether any rights of common are involved, so that either other land can be sought or the inquiries and the valuation can be made at a far earlier stage.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) referred to the question whether there should be five days or 15 days for the lodging of petitions. It is very desirable that in these cases there should be at least 15 days. I cannot think that the loss of 10 days would be serious to the Atomic Energy Authority, but that extra period would enable everyone to feel that the Government are not now proceeding upon the most rigorous application of the Standing Orders of the House. The House itself is responsible for the application of its Standing Orders and I hope that when my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) moves his Amendment, which will provide for a period of 15 days, the Government will find it possible to accept it.
I want to protest most strongly against a matter, known, at any rate, to one Department of the Government as long ago as last year, being proceeded with in this way. The Paymaster-General appears to be dissenting, but I can assure him that the Dorset Land Resources Committee brought this matter to the attention of the inspector at the inquiry.

Mr. Maudling: That happened this year, in January.

Mr. Ede: I gladly concede the right hon. Gentleman as much as that, but, after all, we are now at the end of May. At the end of five days most of us will be going off to attend the Derby. I suggest that those people who are not going might very well spend the sixth of the 15 days in assisting people to formulate their claims under this Bill and the Resolution of the House.

4.50 p.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I do not follow the reasons for the anger of the right hon. Gentleman

the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) about the way this Bill has been framed and the time at which it has been brought before the House, because, so far as I can see, no harm has been done to any individual in the country. If anything, the only sufferer is the Atomic Energy Authority, because it is only after the passage of this Bill that it can get to work on the site. The right hon. Gentleman has been speaking on behalf of the individual, the common right owner, and he is provided for in this Bill. Even if the Bill had been delayed five years his position would not have been jeopardised in any degree, so I do not understand the intervention of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ede: I know the noble Lord is very hard of understanding, but a thing that was known to the Government in January ought to have been brought to the attention of the House long before now.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I think that the whole House by now agrees that a debate on the town and country planning aspects of the siting of large Government establishments, whether atomic energy or otherwise, is urgently required. We have had abortive attempts in the last few months to get a debate, but they have been frustrated by time and procedure in one way or another.
Some of my hon. Friends and myself tried to raise this matter on the Report and Third Reading of the Electricity Bill two or three months ago. Unfortunately I was not able to move my Motion on going into Committee of Supply on Civil Estimates last week because I was on the Parliamentary delegation visiting France and Germany about roads. Today Mr. Speaker has ruled—quite rightly, in my view, if it is not presumptuous to say so—that the debate must be narrowed to very simple confines. However, I appeal to my right hon. Friend to try to arrange through the usual channels, if he would be so good as to speak to the Lord Privy Seal on the subject, for a whole day's debate before the end of the summer on the major questions that are not being satisfactorily settled, and which arise out of the decisions to site new atomic energy establishments, electricity stations, and so on, in the countryside.
Speaking now directly for my own constituency, I say on behalf of my constituents that, by and large, they have no complaint against Her Majesty's Government for the way this matter has been handled. Nor have they any complaint against the local authorities. All has gone forward in due form and order, and the conduct of affairs has been admirable. There are some lessons to be learned from the way the subject has been tackled, but I should like to reserve those for the main debate which hope will follow.
There has been opposition to this proposal, principally on behalf of those for whom the right hon. Member for South Shields affected to speak, and for others concerned with the preservation of the countryside and with the natural beauties and amenities of Dorset. Again it has come from others who fear that the water table will be unduly lowered by the requirements of the Atomic Energy Authority. Yet all these people have had a fairly full hearing for their grievances, and in the last resort the majority of my constituents, and their representatives in the local authorities, have decided that it is entirely satisfactory to have the station established there from many points of view. For instance, from the point of view of taking up any slack in unemployment which may be manifest in the coming years in South Dorset; from the point of view of absorbing some of the products of our secondary modern schools in the scientific and technological side of this work, and from the point of view of promoting trade and thus elevating the general level of civilisation of the countryside.
This place could be called a blasted heath, but it is satisfactory to know that it will not be further blasted by any bombs or explosions, and that it is an experimental centre conducted under very full safeguards. So the majority of my constituents are in favour of the station and want to see it established right away. There is one, and only one, outstanding question which worries them, and I would like an assurance on this point from my right hon. Friend if he replies to the debate. Will the 690 acres which have been acquired be put in a wire fenced perimeter and held there, or will it be allowed to expand, five years by five

years, across the whole of South and East Dorset? There is the fear that though at the moment this is a defined experimental centre, limited in purpose, conducted with every safeguard, yet somehow the scientists will find it convenient in the next ten years, having got this group of buildings on the ground, having got industry associated with the project, to come again under their compulsory powers and demand further land. There is the fear that somehow, by default, this beautiful part of England will be urbanised and suburbanised from, shall we say, Dorchester to Poole Harbour. Those hon. Members and right hon. Members who know my beloved county will, I am sure. wish to join with me in exacting from my right hon. Friend a pledge, if he can go so far, that such a thing will not he done.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: We all join with the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) in his appeal, although I thought that some of his earlier remarks were couched in rather arrogant terms, particularly when he suggested that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was only affecting to speak for certain very real interests in this matter. However. I have no doubt that it was merely a slip of the tongue and not anything more offensive.

Mr. Ede: We take it from whence it comes.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I found that many of the contributions to this debate rather assumed that the only interests affected were those of the commoners, but there are consequential interests involved, and my right hon. Friend referred to them. Indeed, the question of the right of access to this area involved in the proposal before us presents us with a difficult problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) pointed out.
We all recognise the importance of the proposal, and none of us would wish to impede its progress, but we are equally conscious that there are many other proper public interests in the retention of such open spaces, and many of us are afraid that if we concede this proposal it will weaken our argument in other


cases. Whilst I appreciate that we are attempting to have a narrow debate on this issue, it is impossible for us to consider this case fairly without bearing in mind its relevance to other cases which we all know are bound to come before us sooner or later, where again the rights of commoners will be affected, and where again the general right of access to open country will be concerned.
It is purely because this area has already been so damaged by War Office and other operations that there has not been more protest about the proposal put before us by the right hon. Gentleman, and that is not a very satisfactory reason. Indeed, it is something of a tragedy that already there has been a great deal of spoliation which has taken one very beautiful section of Britain out of general enjoyment. So this must be a warning to us to be more careful and more vigilant about our protection of areas of wild countryside in the future, rather than encouraging us to give any easy approval to this proposal.
We know that this area is closely adjacent to Purbeck, and we know, too. that very many people have been denied access to that area because of War Office and other activities in the district. This is merely a further addition to the disabilities from which the general public have been suffering. I think it is right that we should ask for specific assurances from the Government that they are not proposing this as a first step towards a series of proposals of this kind on other areas where common rights exist, because these areas—and there are relatively few of them—are of very great importance to the general public. In a country that is so rapidly becoming more and more urbanised, it is all the more essential that we should fight hard for the preservation of open spaces and the right to breathe. However absurd it may appear to some people that we should even appear to be contrasting the importance of the right of access to a small piece of open common with the importance of an atomic power station and the development of power in this country, it is right that we should pose that question in this House, however academic it may appear to some people.
I would emphasise the point made that we are not at all happy about the general

procedure for consultation with the wider interests that are involved, not merely the commoners themselves but all those who do represent, and do not just affect to represent, very large numbers of people who are anxious to walk over these areas and make use of them. It has been suggested that as this problem is bound to arise again—many of us think so at any rate—it might be wise to look at it in advance to try to establish some form of consultative body which the Minister and others might approach to consider the whole future development of this programme and how best we can avoid difficulties of this sort arising again.
I agree that it is a little disturbing that we should have to consider a Bill of this kind, by which we are adopting a special procedure, when we know that the Royal Commission is considering the whole matter and is likely to bring forward proposals altering the provisions in respect of common land. We would ideally have much preferred that we should have had its considered views rather than adopt a special procedure in this case and then find that we may have to approach the matter in quite a different way when other cases arise. I appreciate the difficulties of doing so in this instance.
This inevitably gives rise to very real and serious anxiety on the part of many of us who are desperately concerned that at a time when there are so many pressures on the limited amount of land surface that we have in this Island, people shall be able to enjoy in the future, as some of us have done in recent years, walking in open country and with reasonable prospects of open spaces, and not be faced always with chimneys of some vast new project wherever there is wild country in the British Isles.
It is from that point of view that I hope that we may have from the Government some further assurance of their attitude and willingness to consider the possibility of some advisory body such as I have suggested.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) has spoken with some feeling about the need to preserve beautiful areas of the countryside like Dorset. I certainly agree with a great deal of what he said, as I agree


with a great deal of what has been said from the Front Bench opposite, because I believe that in Dorset we have a particularly beautiful and unspoiled county.
I was glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the point that Dorset has already made a large contribution to land that is required for public purposes; indeed, standing on Winfrith Heath and glancing across the river one can see Bovington Camp extremely close and also the tank ranges where the land has been churned up.

Mr. Blenkinsop: In view of the fact that I am supporting the hon. Member in trying to preserve Dorset, will he not extend the same support to me in attempting to preserve some part of the Cheviots and Northumberland as well?

Mr. Digby: I will certainly look on it with sympathy when the time comes.
My reason for intervening is that, although Winfrith Heath is just outside my constituency the whole of the question of its development is a matter of great interest throughout Dorset and will undoubtedly have considerable consequences in my constituency. I am a little surprised, knowing this area as I do, that it was not discovered earlier that there were common rights over this land. My information is that, whatever the real rights of the commoners may be, a number of cattle have been turned out on this land. It is also well known to anyone who has had anything to do with common rights that they are apt to be ill defined.
I had occasion a few years ago to cause the summoning of a court-leet, and we had the greatest difficulty in determining who exactly the commoners were and what their rights were. I do not think that it need occasion surprise that there has been difficulty in this matter here.
The general question of this research station at Winfrith Heath has been the cause of considerable local controversy for some time, and as has already been pointed out there are many who have been won over to the scheme; but there are still those who are against it and have some doubts about it. However, there has been a public inquiry, and I do not think that it would be right to go very fully into this argument at the present time. The amenity argument has

been very fully put in the debate this afternoon. The question of water supplies, which is still a source of anxiety to many people in the country. has been mentioned, and I hope that when the Minister replies he will make some allusion to some fresh evidence on this point given only two days ago by Professor Debenham, who is the Emeritus Professor of Geography at Cambridge. He expressed the opinion that it would be dangerous to take such a large supply of water.
To come back to the exact area in which common rights are being taker away, there is also a point which I hope that my right hon. Friend will clear up when he replies to the debate. When I went to see the plans I was surprised to find that in the area north of the railway, where, as I understand it, there will be no buildings, the common rights are going to be extinguished as well. As I understand it, all the buildings will be situated on the south side of the railway. I was, therefore, a little surprised that he was extinguishing the rights on the north side as well. Is that merely to establish a protective belt of trees, or what is the reason for it?
There are a large majority of people in Dorset who welcome this scheme for general reasons, not because they do not think that it will have some effect on the amenities. I think that the reason that they welcome it is that they hope that it will bring money and employment to the district. In that connection, I trust that their hopes will prove well founded and that my right hon. Friend will be able to say something about the encouragement being given to Dorset boys to join the apprenticeship scheme of the Authority when it moves there.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is getting rather far from the Bill. which is very limited in its scope.

Mr. Digby: I do not think I need pursue that point very much further. To return to the question of compensation for these commoners, I hope that a real effort will be made to compensate them. and perhaps I might say that it should be done on not too legalistic a basis. I believe that cattle have been turned out on this heath, and I hope that an effort will be. made to give compensation to those who are to lose grazing rights.
Finally, I should like to say that realise that it is of the greatest importance that the atomic development programme should proceed. There are few in Dorset who would wish to hold it up in any way. Therefore, I give my support to the Bill knowing that, although a number of my constituents will disagree with me, the great majority are in favour of pressing on with this Measure as one which is necessary in order to implement the scheme.

5.11 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stross: The last words of the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) were in support of the scheme, and I entirely agree with him. Although he knows the area very much better than I do, I support the Bill, in part at least, for the reasons he has given. None the less, we know that this site, which was one of the many inspected, was chosen not because there was any desire to extinguish amenities or commoners' rights, but because it was suitable for the purposes of the Atomic Energy Authority.
There was an article in The Times of 9th January of this year in which Sir John Cockcroft stated that the intention was to build about six small-scale experimental reactors over a period of ten to twelve years, and also some small-scale process plants, offices and laboratories. This will, I hope, give excellent opportunities for many young people in the area.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I would remind him that the scope of the debate is limited.

Dr. Stross: I accept that Ruling, but I would point out that by the Bill we are extinguishing commoners' rights. We cannot very easily support or accept the Bill unless we understand the benefits which will accrue from the action which it is proposed to take. Therefore, I made a passing reference by which I was trying to show that in supporting a Bill which extinguishes commoners' rights we do that for the common benefit of a number of people in the area especially, and the people of the country as a whole. That, I suggest, with great respect, is not very far out of order, especially as

I do not intend to speak for very long.
These six types of reactor which are to be built must include experimental types which have not yet been seen anywhere in the world.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am afraid the hon. Member is getting out of order.

Dr. Stross: Again, with respect, I would say that I fully understand how narrow the Bill is; but is not this why we have had to take action against commoners in order to extinguish their rights—because we dare not put experimental buildings and a research station of this type in the middle of a city? We simply must not do that. That being accepted by us all, we have had to go to this site, although it was one of a number that were examined. The constituents in the area are prepared to accept a certain amount of possible risk, knowing that everything will be done to safeguard them in every possible way. None the less, they accept the risk and we have a right to be grateful to them and to say something about it. Therefore, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, do not you think that my remarks apply very strictly to the Bill?
Again, this is not a point on which I propose to dilate, but I would say that the fact that there is a risk means that we should consider the matter as it affects people at large and the people in the area, too. The Minister will remember that a few years ago we discussed a similar project not connected with atomic energy but with hydro-electric power in North Wales. The Minister of Fuel and Power came to the House. I remember this very well, because I took part in the proceedings. All the others concerned were my Welsh colleagues. We demanded from the Minister certain action by way of amenities to see that the buildings put up were not unsightly, that they should be hidden as much as possible, and that not too much water should be taken from the rivers or canals.
The Minister not only agreed to do all this, but he told us in detail how a great deal of money would be spent so that in North Wales, where many people go for holidays, the amenities should be spoiled as little as possible. This pleased the House very much indeed. We have a right to say that, in respect of this part of Dorset, we expect the Minister to give a promise that the siting of the buildings


and their shape, will be given considerable thought, that they should be as attractive as possible, and that access—if it is safe and reasonable on security and other grounds—should be given to the greatest possible extent.
When there is a tremendous scientific revolution such as we are now experiencing, I suppose that it is impossible to achieve the kind of pre-eminence for which we are hoping, and which we expect, without paying a price for it. We all hope that, given every care in the conduct of valuable research, we shall achieve everything we require in the way of cheap power with the least possible amount of damage either to amenities or to health. I think that I should be out of order if I spoke at any length about health risks, but one thing is quite certain and that is that the country will expect that no money will be spared to ensure that the maximum possible safety measures are taken. It is quite certain that they are taken already. Having said all that, may I thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for your courtesy in allowing me to go so far?

5.19 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I wish to make one particular and one general point about the Bill. The particular point is concerned with the work of the valuer who is to be appointed under Clause 2, which says that the Minister of Agriculture
…shall appoint a valuer or other fit person.…
who is to have the title of valuer for the purposes of the Bill. The Clause describes what the work of the valuer shall be.
Could the Minister give some idea of what kind of person is likely to be appointed? What qualifications are required? It appears to me from paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 2 (2) that the work of the valuer is really work for an historical research student as much as for anybody learned in the law of land ownership. He has to find out whether any rights of common exist, and, if so, what is the nature of those rights.
I am quite serious when I say that this is a topic on which a thesis could be written by a learned man, and on which a book could be published; a topic on which an opinion reached in perfectly good faith and after much study might,

perhaps, years later be shown, in consequence of further discoveries, to have been completely mistaken. The valuer, has nevetheless to give an opinion.
A remarkable thing about the Bill is that no limit appears to be prescribed as to how long he is to take to do it. There are time limits once he has made a decision as to what rights exist. There are time limits during which anyone who feels he has a title to those rights can put forward his claim. The valuer can make more than one decision as to what the rights are. As far as I can see from Clause 2, he can make his decisions in instalments, any number of instalments, two or more decisions, and, as far as I can see, there is no time limit imposed on him.

Mr. Leslie Hale: May I help my hon. Friend by pointing out that it goes even further? The Bill provides for the decision's not being made in the lifetime of the valuer and for the appointment of somebody else to make a decision. That is in Clause 3 (5).

Mr. Stewart: I cannot help feeling a pang at my hon. Friend having pointed that out, because I was hoping to lead up to that. It is true, as my hon. Friend points out, that Clause 3 (5) provides for the melancholy contingency of the death of the valuer on the job.
If we are to pass a Bill of this kind at all, then it ought to provide for certainty and finality for its purpose and give certainty to the Authority responsible for erecting the power station, so that once it has been put up nobody can come along, perhaps years later, and say, "I can upset the whole thing because of a legal right still inhering in me." If what the Bill proposes is what we want to do, there is no point in not doing it properly.
Does it need to be made clear explicitly in the Bill—because to a layman's eye it is not made clear explicitly —that after a certain time there can be no further questions raised? I do not find anything in the Bill that says explicitly that by a certain time the valuer must give his final judgment on the matters at issue, and that, after that final judgment, questions cannot be raised again. For all a layman can tell, that may be implicit in the legal wording of the Bill, but certainly on a layman's reading of it it is not clear that


that provision is there, and I think it ought to be there.
So there are two aspects I am pointing to of the matter of the appointment of the valuer. The first is the question, what kind of person is it considered ought to perform this job which requires both legal and historical knowledge? The second is the question, how long is he expected to take over the job, and what certainty is there that, once he has reached a decision, that decision cannot ultimately be questioned either by anyone else or even by himself, if he goes on making further research and finds his earlier decision, reached in good faith. was wrong?
It is remarkable how many opinions which appear to have great, weighty authority behind them at the time they are given, are subsequently overthrown by the progress of historical knowledge; and in no matter is that so true as it is in the matter of rights connected with the ownership of land. I think that, perhaps, it is a little doubtful whether anybody will be found who can really claim to have inherent rights of common in this region, since it would seem from the unhappy history of Dorset that everyone who had such rights was hanged, drawn and quartered after Monmouth's rebellion or was transported overseas after the last peasants' rising in 1831.
I turn from the particular to the general. To those of us who have spent a good many walking holidays in that part of Dorset, who have walked over Egdon Heath and who have read Hardy, this proposal is hound to be a melancholy one. It may ultimately result in the establishment there of a community of some 10,000. It is very difficult for anyone with those associations and interests to feel enthusiastic about it.
However, if we read Hardy's works carefully it is interesting to notice that some of the most likeable characters in his books are those who were not limited to what, after all, was the terribly narrowing life of the countryside which he described. The most agreeable character, the Mayor of Casterbridge, was quite keen on introducing into the county what was in those days the latest agricultural machinery. So if we are devoted adherents of Hardy we are not bound per-

manently to regret the inevitable march of modern developments, and I think it would be wrong, whatever our convictions may be, to try to obstruct the developments of the Atomic Energy Authority. They have all got to come.
We know these things have got to come somewhere. We have to try to seek a balance between the development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy, and all that it means to mankind, and the preservation of amenity. If that is to done, I think the Government must pay great attention to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and others of my hon. Friends about having a proper national plan, so that we do not have these proposals cropping up piece by piece and we do not have to be asked in each successive case, "Are you going to stand in the way of progress merely to preserve a beauty spot in which you are interested?"
Recognising that some amenities have got to be sacrificed, we ought. if we are to make a proper judgment in the matter, to have an idea of how all this development is to be worked out over the whole country, so that we can strike a balance between the needs of the present and the future, between the desire on the one hand to preserve what is beautiful and has honoured associations with the past, and the desire on the other hand for progress.
I have been on holiday in that part of the world, and I have used a little guide book written by one of the inhabitants of that part of the country, and which has as frontispiece a lovely picture of Warbarrow Bay, and yet I have never been able to get to Warbarrow Bay because some Government Department has stood in the way. It is with some grief, therefore, that one perceives that yet another piece of Dorset is to disappear.
However, as I have said, we cannot object to developments everywhere. We should not go round the whole country saying we object to an atomic station being put up in any place. We have to recognise that these developments have to be put somewhere. We are prepared to admit that there was careful consideration before this Bill reached the House. We ought, however, to have some idea how development of this sort is to be


worked out over the country as a whole.
If the Government want to reconcile all of us to a process which, while we know it is a necessity, we cannot welcome with wholehearted enthusiasm—and the Government want us to be reconciled to it, want the public to be reconciled to it—they must proceed with as much graciousness as possible, and they can do that a little later in our proceedings by accepting the Amendment which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) will move to the Motion which the Government are to move after the Second Reading of the Bill. Were they to do that, that at least would be some indication that they recognise the amount of feeling there is on this question in general.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: The debate that we have had so far has shown the whole House that there are a great many very important points of both principle and detail involved in the Bill. They seem to me to fall into two categories. First, there is the general question as to how we should decide on the balance between the demands of further atomic stations and the demands for the preservation of amenities. Secondly, there is the question of the procedure which the Government have adopted for the Bill.
I feel that I ought at the outset to say something, if only out of respect for the Minister, in elaboration of an interjection which I made earlier. Like many of my hon. Friends, I have been intrigued to discover who is to reply to the debate. A number of hon. Members opposite appear to have assumed that the Minister will reply. I cannot for a moment believe that that is so. The rules of the House are express. In a Second Reading debate an hon. Member is entitled to speak once only, except with the leave of the House. The Minister has exhausted his right to speak, and it would, to say the least, be presumptuous for him or his hon. Friends to assume that he will be allowed to speak again.
I mention this not out of any disrespect for the Minister—I have the greatest admiration for him—but because I feel that the undesirable practice of having only one Minister to speak on Bills of importance is growing. It is a practice to be deprecated. It has the grave disadvantage

that it deprives the House of the services of other Ministers who ought to be present when we consider Bills of this kind. After all, the Bill is presented by the Prime Minister, supported by the Attorney-General, the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
It is obvious that a great many legal points arise. We have had occasion in the past to complain about the absence from our debates of the Law Officers of the Crown. The absence of the Law Officers during the proceedings on the Finance Bill has become notorious. This is one occasion on which we can express our will that there shall be a Law Officer present, because on this occasion we are able to refuse permission to the Minister to speak again.
We can do this without any inconvenience to the House, because there is no need for the Bill to be given a Second Reading today. If it is not convenient for one of the Law Officers or one of the other Ministers to be present today—I assume that the Minister will not leave it to a back bench Member to reply—then we can adjourn our debate, either the Prime Minister or the Attorney-General will be able to read what has been said by hon. Members on both sides, and we shall be able to resume the debate after Whitsun. This will have the further advantage that it will enable my right hon. and hon. Friends to proceed at an early hour today with further consideration of the Finance Bill.
Turning to the Bill itself, I am bound to say that the more I hear about it the less I like it. This is an enclosure Bill. The history of enclosures in this country is a long and chequered one. As the Minister says, in matters of enclosure it is necessary that the House should be particularly vigilant, because the history of enclosures over many centuries shows the trouble, agitation, injustice and unpopularity which has resulted first from illegal enclosures and then from enclosures rushed through the House.
The Minister will remember that it was the enclosures in the middle of the sixteenth century, which were totally unlawful, which led to Kett's rebellion in Norfolk and other rebellions. It was then recognised what a serious matter it was to extinguish common rights. It was


recognised that, because common rights are so traditional and so inherent in our national life, they should be extinguished only by an Act of Parliament. I thought the Minister tried to belittle the importance of communal rights. He said that only a handful of people were affected.

Mr. Maudling: I tried to draw a distinction in that the number of individuals concerned was very small but the principle was very important. If I did not make that clear, I must apologise.

Mr. Fletcher: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. It is important to emphasise that it is not only a matter of the number of people in the locality who may be affected. There is also the fact that it is difficult to trace and identify them. Also, besides the people living in the localities, the public generally are interested in these matters. That is why it is important that the consent of Parliament should be required before common rights are extinguished.
I do not think the Minister is entitled to complain of the difficulty of tracing people who enjoy common rights. In the nature of things, common rights are not registrable. They existed from time immemorial before any question of registration arose. It is because in past centuries people have been vigilant to prevent invasion of common rights that today we enjoy such open spaces as we have. This accounts for open spaces round some of our great towns. In the case of London such places as Hampstead Heath and Wimbledon Common have been preserved. These open spaces have prevented the asphyxiation of large urban areas.
I appreciate that whenever questions of enclosure arise the House has to balance the respective advantages of, on the one hand, making concessions which involve the destruction of amenities and common rights and, on the other hand, making concessions in order that we as a country may march forward and take advantage of scientific development. Speaking for myself, I am impressed by what has been said by hon. Members representing Dorset constituencies. They are in touch with local feeling, and they have testified that large numbers of their constituents, perhaps the majority of them, are not averse to the Government's proposal.
I am sure that they realise that the beauties and attractions of Dorset are not confined to those who live in that part of our national heritage. As has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and others, all those who have enjoyed Hardy's novels and treasure memories of Egdon Heath are deprived of something if what has hitherto been common land is given over to the Atomic Energy Authority. Nevertheless, speaking for myself, I am prepared to preserve an open mind. I am not unsympathetic towards the necessity in this day and age of providing somewhere, though not necessarily here, suitable sites for the development of atomic energy.
I must, however, take serious exception to the procedure which the Government have adopted in trying to rush the Bill through. There was not the slightest justification for it. I am not impressed by the fact that there was a planning inquiry in Dorset.
I think it necessary to mention the facts of the timetable which the Government have sought to impose. It was only as recently as 16th May that a notice first appeared in The Times and not until 21st May in the London Gazette giving notice. in accordance with the Standing Orders, of the Authority's intention that the Bill should be presented. The Bill was presented the same day, 21st May. Next day, 22nd May, it was referred to the Examiners for them to report on whether it complied with the Standing Orders. On 28th May the Examiners reported that it did not comply with Standing Orders. Prima facie, it then ought not to have come before the House at all during the current Session. After the report of the Examiners, the Bill was then referred to the Standing Orders Committee. The Standing Orders Committee met yesterday, and its report appears in the Votes and Proceedings dated 29th May. It is item No. 13, a curious item, which reads as follows:
 Resolution reported from the Standing Orders Committee; That, in the case of the Winfrith Heath Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the Bill be permitted to proceed 
I am not sure whether that Resolution is debatable or not. I should have thought that, prima facie, it was a Resolution which this House at some stage was entitled to debate. What it says is that,


notwithstanding non-compliance with Standing Orders, the Bill is to proceed.
Curiously enough, it then says, "Resolution agreed to". In fact, the words "Resolution agreed to "are a mere formality, but the House should know what has happened. The Standing Orders Committee met yesterday and decided to recommend the House that, notwithstanding non-compliance with Standing Orders, the Bill should be allowed to proceed. There is not a moment's interval between the consideration of that procedural matter by the Standing Orders Committee and the Second Reading debate. There ought to have been an interval, as the Minister knows perfectly well, and, if there had been an interval, it would have been open to any hon. Member to put down a Motion challenging the recommendation of the Standing Orders Committee. But that has not been done.
The Government proceeding with a rapidity and despatch which seems quite inexcusable, for which no justification has been offered to the House, the Second Reading is down for hearing today. To make matters worse, the Prime Minister is to propose, if the House gives a Second Reading to the Bill, it being a hybrid Bill, that before any progress is made further, it should be referred to a Select Committee and that petitioners who have a right to be heard will have to file their petitions within five days. The five days includes Saturday and Sunday, so that, if his Motion stands, it will mean that petitions will have to be filed by next Tuesday afternoon at five o'clock.
It seems to me that, in a matter of this importance—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this point he is dealing with now really arises on the next Motion.

Mr. Fletcher: I am much obliged; I will not pursue it now. I refer to it at this stage merely as an indication of what appears to me to be the entirely unjustified speed with which the Bill is being rushed through the House. That in itself is ground for some suspicion.
This is a matter in which not only the Society mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) but other societies, such as the Council for the Preservation of Rural

England, the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society and others interested in rights of way have an interest, and all of them may wish to appear, apart from those who live in the locality. All may want to present petitions, and there is very little time available for them to obtain advice and present petitions.
It seems to me that all the surrounding circumstances in which the Bill comes before us give ground for suspicion. Public opinion has had no opportunity of crystallising, still less of formulating a view and expressing itself on the subject. While I, for my part, would not be disposed to oppose the Bill in principle. I would, therefore, think it desirably nevertheless that, before the House proceeds further, every possible opportunity should be given to those interested in opposing it to make their voice heard. My attitude towards the Minister may be summed up in this way, if I may so put it, that whereas it is for him to decide whether the beauties of Winfrith Heath are to be violated. the outrageous speed with which the matter has been carried through is an offence to Parliamentary and public decency.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Robens: It should be recorded that it is only by accident that we are having this debate at all. upon which depends the building of this atomic research station. Had it not been that the site selected happened to be on a piece of land where common rights exist. Parliament would not be discussing the wider aspects of the matter. When it is considered that the power station programme is a fairly big one, and that. by the very nature of atomic power stations, they must inevitably be sited in some of the most beautiful parts of the British Isles, it is very useful and fortunate that we have had to have this Bill before us almost at the beginning of the programme.
As I understand, Winfrith Heath is selected, as every other site for a nuclear power station must be selected, because it is as far away as possible from populated areas. I understand that this necessity arises because no one can guarantee, although there has been only one happening of the kind in the world that there would not be a leak from such a station. If a leak were to occur, people


would have to leave the area. Consequently, since it would be quite impossible to evacuate large towns and cities, the stations are built in places like Winfrith Heath to make evacuation possible and effective.
Moreover, the sites must be where there is a plentiful supply of water. I understand that this particular research station to be built at Winfrith Heath will require 10 million gallons of water a day. That is a fantastic quantity of water. Such requirements presuppose that all these stations will have to be built near the sea, on a river, or a place where there is a very good water supply. Inevitably, we are, I think, driven to site these power stations in the most beautiful parts of Britain, contrary to the practice with steam power stations, which are always placed in areas of great population because of the distribution economies to be secured in that way.
This debate, therefore, seems to me to provide a proper opportunity for suggesting to the Paymaster-General that there is here raised a matter of tremendous public importance, far beyond the dispossessing of a few people of their common rights. As has already been said, when these people are dispossessed, so is the rest of the nation. That is why it is good that, very early on in the atomic power programme, this Bill has come before the House. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that he is the sponsoring Minister for the whole of this programme and that he has a responsibility to the House, because, in the absence of a Bill such as this, there will be no opportunity for Parliament to have a single word to say about the despoliation of such areas as Winfrith Heath.
It would, therefore, seem right and proper that when the Minister is considering the further progress of the Bill he might take into consideration all the other decisions that he will have to make concerning the compulsory acquisition of land in the most beautiful parts of the country. He might come to the conclusion that the right people to select sites are not the operators of the atomic power programme but a Minister of the Crown, who can be informed by the atomic power authorities of the prerequisites of these sites, such as a good water supply and a remoteness from

populated areas. Such a Minister would be responsible to the House and we could question him in the House.
It may well be that the appropriate Minister would look at certain aspects of the site quite differently from the operators of the power programme. He might consider some of the areas—again in beautiful country, and very often remote from populated areas—which have already been desecrated by the winning of gravel and the taking up of raw materials. I do not see why there should be any technical difficulty in building stations like this below the skyline and even underground where existing conditions permit.
The Minister, who is responsible for putting this Bill before us—a Bill to take over part of Winfrith Heath—should consider some of these other factors and should concern himself with the public aspect of the question of the spoliation of Britain in relation to the whole nuclear energy programme. I hope that the Minister will give very serious consideration to the advisability of either he or the Minister of Housing and Local Government taking over the responsibility for finding sites for the erection of nuclear power stations.
We shall probably discuss the question of the time that has been permitted for petitioners to present their petitions on an Amendment which has been placed upon the Order Paper by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), but I beg the Minister to see that a reasonable time is given to petitioners. Five days, with Saturday and Sunday intervening, does not seem an adequate period. It seems to me that 15 days would be a reasonable minimum. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can see his way to accepting that point of view.
We shall not vote against the Second Reading because, upon the relative merits of the research station and Winfrith Heath, the research station has it, on balance. But, although we shall not vote against the Second Reading, I hope that the Minister will take into consideration all that has been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House on the whole question. We are all very anxious to proceed with our power station programme, but we are also extremely jealous of maintaining the best that is left in this industrial country of ours.

Mr. Maudling: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should like to reply to the many points which have been made, especially those of a general character.

Mr. E. Fletcher: On a point of order. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) sat down, both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) rose. As I understand the rules of the House, no Member is entitled to make a second speech—certainly not while other Members are waiting to speak. As far as I understand the rules of order, a Minister is in no different position in this respect from any other hon. Member.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I called the Minister. He can reply only by leave of the House.

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West rose at the same time as the Minister. Surely my hon. Friend is entitled to speak if he catches your eye, whereas the Minister is not entitled to speak without leave of the House.

Mr. Maudling: I thought that the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) was concluding the debate on behalf of the Opposition and that it would therefore be convenient to the House if I replied to the many points which had been made. If other hon. Members still wish to speak, however, I shall be very glad to give way in order to meet their wishes.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I had every intention of catching your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, at some convenient time. In the circumstances, I will try to make some of the points I have in mind. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), because he made a point of first importance which ought to have been made and which I was not going to make. He also made a point of great importance which I was going to make, and which I propose still to make.
The noble Lord, the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) himself said—and I think that the whole House would agree—that the time has come for a debate upon the general question. We cannot have that debate now, but this really is a rather classic

example of the way in which the House delegates its powers, often without realising it. As my right hon. Friend said, an important matter like this has come to us in this quite extraordinary form and in these quite unusual circumstances—in the form of what I understand is certified to be a Hybrid Bill—for discussion under special rules.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) has called my attention to something that I had completely overlooked—and I say this frankly as one who tries to keep himself abreast of procedure in the House. Apparently there was put from the Chair, yesterday—without any notice to the House, and without its ever having been on the Order Paper—a Motion that the Standing Orders of the House should cease to apply to this Bill when it was discussed. I have not seen such a Motion before. I do not pretend, therefore, to make any observation on the matter with any authority, but if none of the Standing Orders apply to the House, I do not see how we can discuss any Bill—and there is no indication which Standing Order is suspended.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is not in order now to discuss the decision of the Standing Orders Committee.

Mr. Hale: I do not mind about that. I would not challenge that Ruling for a moment. I was going to say that in the event of the wrong procedure having been followed and the possibility that somebody could apply to the courts in twelve months' time and say that this Statute had never been passed because it was never brought before the House, it might be convenient to decide the issue now instead of when the atomic energy station has been built.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That point could not arise. This is the normal procedure before the Standing Orders Committee.

Mr. Hale: I accept that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I have been here for only twelve years, and it has not happened before in my time.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: During the time that the hon. Member has been here a number of Bills have been before the Standing Orders Committee.

Mr. Hale: I do not doubt that. I am not a member of the Standing Orders


Committee and I am not saying that it has not been diligently performing its duty. What I am saying is that the Bill comes before us in what appears to be an abnormal form.
This brings me to my second point. I know that in the course of finance debates we sometimes call facetious attention to the absence of Her Majesty's Ministers, and so on. We employ four Law Officers of the Crown and they are paid rather more substantial salaries than other Ministers, but we have not seen one of them for days and days and days, so far as I know—and I have been present in the course of the last week when comments have been made about the absence of the Law Officers, which comments seemed completely justified.
The right hon. Gentleman is now raising one of the most complicated matters of law that could be placed before the House—a law upon which there is only one volume in the whole House of Commons Library, and someone has pinched that—but we have not got a legal adviser of any kind to help us with this problem. It really is an impossible situation.
I do not want to criticise the Attorney-General in his absence. I think that he has recently been subjected to a good deal of criticism which is completely unjustified, but I think that my present complaint is justified. In view of the fact that this comment was made before four o'clock, I suggest that two hours was sufficient to get someone here to deal with these extremely complicated points.
Everyone in his heart realises the dichotomy which always faces these lovely areas. I doubt whether anyone, whatever his local patriotism, would dispute my submission that Dorset was the most unspoilt county in Britain until some lunatic in the War Office discovered Lulworth Cove; but being an unspoilt county is not an unmixed blessing. It is nice to look at all these charming thatched cottages, but they are not always the best appointed residences or the best places to live in. In an unspoilt county most of the resources of industry and the higher standard of life which industries have to give are, perhaps, removed rather more from the inhabitants.
We have precisely this dilemma, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, on the

West Cumberland coast. That was a pretty barren area of coast. But in fact it is very near to some of the loveliest parts of the Lake District and the place which has been put up there has brought a great deal of prosperity to the area. It has added to the standard of life by providing them with a "middle-class". I do not say this in any snobbish sense. Everyone who has lived in a village knows that if one can get a number of people on the higher wage levels to live in the village, one is able to get more forms of social life going—tennis clubs and sports clubs—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he is getting far from this Bill which deals with the extinction of common rights.

Mr. Hale: I will not dispute that for the moment. I have gone from Dorset to West Cumberland which is a distance of about 300 miles. But, to get back to Dorset, I say with respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that Mr. Speaker gave a considered Ruling on this in the early stages of the debate and indicated that he had no wish for it to develop into a widespread debate on atomic power. I understood him to say that we were in order when considering this Bill to discuss shortly whether the Bill should be passed at all—in other words, whether we were in favour of an atomic energy station being erected on what the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South referred to as the "blasted heath". I distinctly heard the noble Lord say that, and for a moment I listened in shocked surprise. For a moment I did not recog-the quotation and I thought that the noble Lord was making rather less than an urbane comment on his former Chief Whip.
I remembered afterwards that it was the place of which Hardy wrote so beautifully, and I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend who administered a gentle admonition to the many who admire Hardy as one of the greatest of our English novelists. He should be appreciated as essentially a novelist of the countryside and country life and a novelist of a period with which we associate, unfortunately, not only the things he so well described but enclosures, which were not one of the things he appreciated so much.
As I have said, this is a difficult legal question and it was on this point that


the right hon. Gentleman was singularly unconvincing. He made an extremely able speech and one which tended to commend the Bill to the House despite some of the difficulties about which we have spoken. The hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) said he believed that the right of grazing, of pasturage, had been exercised with some regularity until recently, and that is a fact which could be checked beyond the possibility of dispute. The right of estovers, turbary and piscary can either be appendant, appurtenant or in gross. In the main, one would say in this country almost exclusively, the right is attached to the property itself. The right is attached not to the manor, not to the heath, but to the inhabitants who use and exercise the right. Therefore, when we say we cannot find out who they are, presumably they are all dotted round the heath. They are the people who occupy these premises. One cannot, at any rate in Britain, have the right of turbary on Egdon Heath, for example, and then leave the district and take that right to Leicestershire. The person who takes over the residence takes over the right.
I appreciate and say at once that these matters may not seem to be of great national importance compared with the development of atomic energy. I had hoped that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who is our expert on fuel, would have taken advantage of the opportunity to refer to peat which is one of the most delightful of fuels, if it is maintained in an appropriate open fire, and which provides not only warmth and heat but a healthy smell and the development of the use of turbary.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman has left out the most important single characteristic of peat which is, of course, that it is smokeless and therefore a direct contributor to the clean air policy.

Mr. Hale: Yes, I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I have lived in a cottage in Donegal which had peat fires, and certainly, apart from the fact that it requires rather more bulk than coal, I think it is an admirable form of alternative fuel which might very well be considered.

Mr. Nabarro: I quite agree.

Mr. Hale: I am most grateful to the hon. Member, although his agreement fills me with a certain amount of dubiety.
If it is so easy to find out, surely it is easy to find out who are the people with the right of turbary. One thing which the right hon. Gentleman did not do in the course of an informative but not a short speech—I am not saying it was a long speech—in which he covered the ground with his usual ability, was to tell us what sort of inquiries have been made.

Mr. Maudling: I think I did say that there was an award of 1771 to which was attached a map, but unfortunately the map has been lost.

Mr. Hale: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman said 1792, but we will put the date back by twenty years. A grant of the eighteenth century is not a relevant document. These rights exist by prescription. In point of fact, the whole of this problem arose in the thirteenth chapter of Genesis, verse 6—[Laughter.] When I make an extremely serious historical statement, someone laughs, and so I will quote the verse.
 And the land was not able to bear them. that they might dwell together: For their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.
And there was a great strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle.
There it is, Genesis, chapter 13, verse 6. Any authoritative book on these things will reveal that the right has existed so long as there has existed a disparity between the ownership of the land and the number of the people. It is a right which comes because there are people without land and people who need it. It is a right which can be created by statutory prescription or by long user or by deed or grant or by tenancy of manner or by custom. But if it exists at all. it is "all Lombard Street to a china orange" that it exists among the inhabitants of the particular village which surrounds the "blasted heath". In those circumstances, we might think it not a difficult matter for the Atomic Energy Commission, charged with complicated and difficult duties, to go and see that everyone was satisfied, instead of coming to the House of Commons with a Bill to extinguish it.
My right hon. Friend raised a point which I consider of great importance. I do not know to what extent the Paymaster-General has discussed this matter with the Home Secretary, but a few weeks ago we were told in this House that in the event of war, or impending war, we should evacuate about 15 million people. But where to? That question, "Where to?" was a big question before this—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This is far beyond the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Hale: With respect, may I say that the question whether we are to stick an atomic energy power station—which of course will be an object of aerial attack in the event of war—in all the evacuation areas is a very serious question to put before the House when we are considering whether we should pass this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman's case is that until we pass the Bill, the whole thing is held up. Therefore, if we refuse a Second Reading to the Bill, we shall get the necessary delay for consideration. As my hon. Friend has said, we could also have a little delay for consideration if the right hon. Gentleman would say, "We will adjourn until the Attorney-General comes back from Eastbourne and then we will consider this matter again."
I do not want to put sentimental values against a matter of this kind, but the important consideration of the preservation of beautiful England is not a sentimental matter. It is a matter which concerns every inhabitant of the country. Time after time we find that almost every Government Department seems determined to come into these areas and therefore—I do not put it any higher than this, and I confess that I can see the advantages and disadvantages—it is a duty upon us, which we should not have delegated in 1954, to see that every step is taken to try to do as little damage as possible to the beauty of these unspoilt areas.
I confess a sentimental interest in the rights of common, turbary, and so on, which the reforming zeal of the late F. E. Smith began to wipe away. The abolition of copyhold was what he called the simplification of our legal system. I have never found it was made much simpler since he passed a whole series of Acts which many of us have spent so

long trying to master; but we have lost the actual picturesqueness of historic England with the abolition of the manor and copyhold, and with it some of the rights appertaining to the manor and the manorial system.
I certainly agree that it is right that we should listen carefully before we use the steamroller of an Act of Parliament to extinguish individual rights. It is not always the magnitude of a matter which is important; in this case it is a very small matter. Apparently there are only a very few villagers concerned and the rights have not been very strongly exercised; so far as turbary is concerned not exercised for some time. Once we start the new world in which we are constructing aerodromes, atomic energy stations, new towns, and so on, we create precedents which begin to grow. One of the problems of Socialism, and certainly the whole art of Government, is to reconcile the needs of the majority with the rights of the minority. Only when we keep that principle in mind, as an essential liberal principle, can we discharge our duty here.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. Maudling: Perhaps I may, with the permission of the House, answer the points made in the debate. I shall be glad to have the opportunity of doing so. Many points have been made, some particular and some general, and I should like to deal, so far as I can, with all of them.
The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) who, as was explained to the House, could not be here at this time, asked me particularly about the position of the highway which runs across the Heath. There is no intention of either closing or diverting that highway. I think that is the answer the right hon. Gentleman wanted. My noble Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) was concerned about the area. The total area involved is, think, 688 acres, of which planning permission has been given for only 400 acres. The present plan of the Authority is to use only this area, and to keep the other 288 acres in reserve against their requirements some twenty years ahead. So far as they can see they are not likely to be wanting this area for about twenty years. My noble Friend can be satisfied on that


point. I would here pick up a point raised by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and say that there will be the need for a lot of accommodation. The housing plans will be fitted in to the plans of the local authorities, as they are developed.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) raised the question of access and whether this Bill would become the general procedure. The reactors to be put on the site will each occupy an area of about three acres. They will be enclosed. The rest of the area, after clearing away scrub, which is necessary by reason of fire risk, will be left open for the public to walk across. On the point whether today's procedure will become general, I can answer that that is certainly not the intention of the Government. The only reason we are adopting this procedure is the need for speed. It is fairly clear that no Government would choose to act in every individual case by means of a Bill when there is other procedure already in existence which, though slower, does not involve legislation. There is no intention of making this a precedent. I am glad of the opportunity to tell the House that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) asked two questions. in particular about water supplies. This matter has been gone into with very great care between the Authority and the local water authorities. I understand that between them they consider that they can reach agreement about how the problem is to be tackled. I have not heard about this particular statement of the last two days to which my hon. Friend referred, but I can assure him that if anything new is brought forward it will certainly be taken into consideration. We quite understand that it is very important that the water supply of the area should not be adversely affected by what is, admittedly. a very large new demand.
My hon. Friend also asked about the stretch of land north of the railway. The local planning authority asked that trees should be planted on the area to screen the rest of the site. That is the purpose of eliminating common rights on that part of the Heath. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) asked about a number of things, including two particular points. The first was about

the siting and appearance of these stations. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government gave his permission it was subject to several conditions, including the condition that the site, design and external appearance of all buildings must be agreed with the local planning authority or, failing agreement, must be determined by the Minister, and that screens of trees should be provided as agreed with the local planning authority. I think that point is fairly well covered. As to safety measures, the authority is very well aware of their importance and a considerable tribute is due to the Authority for the efficiency with which it has dealt with the matter.
The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) asked interesting questions about the valuer, and the type of person we envisage. The valuer would probably be a member of the Bar with experience of conveyancing, and a legal knowledge of land and land values. Possibly a land agent might be the alternative. He would necessarily be a person with the qualifications to carry out fairly exhaustive feats of legal research.
The question of a time-limit was raised. The Bill provides that the valuer must produce his award when he is satisfied that he has examined the thing thoroughly, but there is no time-limit. I appreciate the reference of the hon. Member for Fulham to the possible death of the valuer. To be serious, there was only recently a case of a gentleman who died when holding a public inquiry, and the whole thing had to be started again. New arrangements had to be made. We should have to make provision about that. The effect of the Bill will be that his judgment, when made, is final.
Most of these points will be examined again between now and the Committee stage of the Bill. Those are the main points of detail. Now I turn to the wider question raised by hon. Members that the Bill, narrow as it is in substance, poses a wide problem of reconciling the national need for power with the natural desire to retain as much as we can of the beauty of our countryside. It is a terribly difficult problem, and I know that a number of hon. Members consider that this is a matter which should be debated at a time when we can give it


proper consideration. It cannot, however, be discussed within the rules of order in any detail today.
I should now like to deal with the question why we want to eliminate these common rights. It is very difficult to find sites which meet the necessary requirements of atomic energy reactors and power stations. This is an experimental station belonging to the Atomic Energy Authority, and is in a rather different category from the new power stations of the Central Electricity Authority which have been referred to. In either case, the requirements of water supply and the disposing of effluents are the same.
One or two points were raised about the safety of these things. One of the reasons for siting these reactors in remote areas is safety. It is important for me to reaffirm with all the vigour I can that there is no danger whatever in the case of power stations of anything in the nature of an atomic explosion. The fact is that they contain highly toxic substances, as indeed do some chemical works. Until we have had experience of these power stations it is reasonable to site them away from populous areas so that if a poisonous substance should escape we can evacuate the area.
That will not apply indefinitely to the power stations, but I cannot, in answer to the hon. Member for Rossendale, forecast the time when that will change. This is an experimental station, and what I have said applies to it more than to the power stations. One will gain experience of how they work as one goes along. I accept that it is very difficult in these matters to decide between the requirements of national power policy and the maintenance of the amenities of the countryside. That, however, I do not think is entirely the matter we are discussing in this Bill, because there are statutory provisions whereby these matters are balanced up at a public inquiry and finally settled, as in this instance, by the Minister of Housing and Local Government. That statutory procedure has been gone through fully and with very great care and circumspection, as was said by my noble Friend the Member for Dorset, South.
The point we are discussing is whether we should agree to the elimination of commoners' rights by this particular method of a hybrid Bill because they could have been eliminated by other methods—by Private Bill legislation or by procedure under the Land Clauses Act. The case really rests on this. If it is agreed that this station should go on this site it is vitally important to get ahead with the job. It is generally agreed that the case for putting this station on this site has been accepted at a public inquiry and accepted and confirmed by the Minister of Housing and Local Government. Therefore, should not we get on with it as quickly as possible, because nothing is more important for the economy of the country than the development of our atomic energy resources? To delay an important part of the Harwell scheme seems something which the House should not accept, because that would be a serious and definite handicap to expansion in the atomic field.
It would not be possible to get ahead this year with this station without the machinery of a hybrid Bill. If the Authority had to proceed with the machinery of the Land Clauses Act, or by a Private Bill—which is another possibility we considered—it would not then be possible to obtain the approval of Parliament in time to start work on the site this autumn. If we do not start this autumn we shall not be able to start properly on the constructional work and roads until next year. The damage to our economy as a result would be severe and the opportunities we should be losing would be considerable. Therefore, I think the justification for giving a Second Reading to the Bill this afternoon is that, having recognised, reluctantly, that we have to establish a station like this at Winfrith Heath, we should accept that the work should begin as quickly as possible. I hope that, with that explanation on the points which have been raised, the House will be prepared to give a Second Reading to the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Select Committee of seven Members, four to be nominated by the House and three by the Committee of Selection. —[Mr. Maudling.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That any Petitions against the Bill presented being deposited in the Private Bill Office at any time not later than the fifth day after this day in which the Petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel or Agents, shall stand referred to the Committee, but that if no such Petition is presented, or a all such Petitions are withdrawn before the meeting of the Committee, the order for the committal of the Bill to a Select Committee shall be discharged and the Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Maudling.]

6.25 p.m.

Mr. E. Fletcher: I beg to move, to leave out "fifth" and to insert "fifteenth".
The object of this Amendment, as the House will have gathered, is to extend by 10 days the time available to persons desirous of petitioning against the Bill to lodge their petitions with the Committee which has now been set up to consider the Bill. We had some discussion about this during the Second Reading debate. I think the right hon. Gentleman must have been impressed by the representations made by a number of hon. Members about the considerable hardship which may result if he persists in this extremely curtailed opportunity to enable people who have grievances, or think they have grievances, to make representations.
In the Motion that the right hon. Gentleman has proposed, petitions would have to be filed at the Private Bill Office within five days. Today being Thursday and the week-end intervening, I understand that the time limit would be to 5 o'clock next Tuesday. I should have thought that time quite inadequate. The right hon. Gentleman has attempted to justify the adoption of the hybrid Bill procedure on the grounds that any of the alternative methods open to the Government—namely, by Private Bill procedure or under the Land Clauses Act—would have involved months and he has persuaded the House to give a Second Reading to the Bill.
Nevertheless, I do not think that the national interest would be jeopardised in any way by giving persons whose rights are being extinguished, and who, so far, have had very little notice about this matter, an opportunity of saying what they want to say. In these matters, it is not merely sufficient that justice should be done; it is necessary that justice should he seen to be done.
It is not easy to prepare a petition of this kind and get it into right form without a certain amount of professional advice and, perhaps, consultation with the Private Bill Office. We are extinguishing the common rights and passing what, virtually, is an enclosure Act—the last of a long series—in the passing of which it is the duty of this House to be vigilant in seeing that the interests of those whose rights are being extinguished are not neglected and that they are not extinguished without due thought and due protection. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will respond to the representations made to him and conciliate what opposition there has been to this very difficult problem by accepting the Amendment.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Robens: I beg to second the Amendment.
I wish to support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) and to urge the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the fact that we have facilitated the passage of the Bill, to remember that we must have some consideration for those who have to prepare petitions. It would seem that 15 days is reasonable and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the Amendment.

6.31 p.m.

Mr. Maudling: I appreciate the spirit in which this Amendment has been moved and I wish I could do something to meet the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) but, for reasons I have explained, I cannot do so. I do not, in fact, think that the time allowed is anything like so inadequate as has been suggested. The period of five days is practically the standard period in the case of hybrid Bills. In twelve out of the last sixteen the period was five days and the longest period was seven days.
What is more important, is that notice of this Bill was given in the local newspapers on 16th May. There has been that amount of notice, but what is still more important is that there has been local discussion of this project for more than a year now. Everyone in the district who could possibly be affected has been aware of this as long ago as June, 1956. Advertisements were published in the local newspapers by the local planning authority, stating that anyone affected


could make representations and a full inquiry was held, but no commoner came forward or made an objection. No commoner has expressed objection to the Atomic Energy Authority. The public has been well aware of what was happening and no one objected. There has been a reasonable period in which to consider the matter.
It is important that we should get the legislation before the House rises for the Summer Recess because, if not, the Authority would be held up until November and we should not get the work done. It is important to get the Bill passed before the House rises. We might jeopardise the whole purpose of the Bill if more than five days were allowed. That is the reason why, with regret, I cannot accept the Amendment. This has been common knowledge in the district for more than a year now and one cannot see that there is any real danger of unfairness to individuals arising.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Hale: This is a monstrous proposition. I do not care whether we have done it before or not. When a grievance is called to our attention, the time has come to remedy it. I was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should advance this theory that farm labourers in Dorset cottages read the London Gazette or even the public notices column of the local newspaper, because that theory is somewhat remote from reality. I know that there has been a public inquiry and I know that there are people like the rural preservation societies who know all about it, but—

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: If they do not read the paper they will not read the hon. Gentleman's speech, which is advocating an extension of time from five to fifteen days. This extra ten days makes no difference.

Mr. Hale: I am sorry to have to talk to the noble Lord about Dorset, because he has been the Member for South Dorset for a long time. But Dorset villagers—and I lived there—are not the sort of people who buy evening papers. There is, or was, 'the Dorchester Echo, which is an excellent provincial paper, if it is still going; it was going in my time. But it certainly is not taken around Little Hinton and Tolpuddle by cycle at seven o'clock in the evening.
The result is that the first chance the average person in Dorset has, not of reading a report of my speech but of reading a report of the fact that this Bill has been given a Second Reading, will be when the weekly paper comes out. That is his first chance. When the average Dorset labourer gets his weekly paper he puts it behind the clock on the mantelpiece until Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday afternoon he sits down and spreads himself; and then he has the chance suddenly of finding out that something which affects him very much has been passed by the House of Commons.
I thought at least that there would be five Parliamentary days in which to present a Petition and I was shocked—indeed, I could hardly believe it—when I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) state that the Petition must be deposited in the Private Bill Office by five o'clock on Tuesday.
What is to happen? The chap who thinks his grandfather had a right of turbary or the man who wants to preserve the amenities of the district has to go along to the local inn, first, and consult his fellows about it. He has to ask. "Where is this Private Bill Office and what do we do about a Private Bill?" Let us face it: Dorset may be very well represented, although politically backward, but how many of us could answer the questions if we were in the public house that night and they asked us, as hon. Members, how to deposit a Petition in the Private Bill Office, who will draw it up, what fees will have to be paid and whether they have to send a stamped and addressed envelope or to present it in person, or how it is done? Who knows'? I wonder whether the Minister would care to say that he knows.
In point of fact, the whole of the wretched procedure, as we all know, is a public scandal, hived out to a number of lawyers whose sole qualification is that they bought the partnership of the man who had this monopoly before them, with fantastic fees, fantastic problems and fantastic difficulties, to which none of us has had time to apply his mind and to which some of us ought to apply our minds before long.
Let us examine what the Minister has said. He has said. "If you give them


fifteen days you will hold us up ". This shows a lack of communication between Ministers, because it is only a day or two ago that the Leader of the House was telling us that he hoped we should have a long holiday for Whitsuntide because the Government are now reconsidering their special problems, including, no doubt, the by-election result at South Edinburgh. He said, "We shall, therefore, not trouble about bringing the House together for something like a fortnight, provided we make reasonable progress with business." Heaven knows, we have been flashing through the Finance Bill at an almost unprecedented speed. There has been no hold-up.
If the right hon. Gentleman accepts the Amendment it means that Dorset will be given an extra ten days in which to simmed down and prepare these Petitions and that they will arrive in the middle of the Whitsuntide holiday. Does the right Gentleman seriously suggest that this Committee of seven will get together to consider Petitions immediately after Tuesday and before the House rises for the Adjournment? If it does, then I submit that it will be doing it with undue haste. The right hon. Gentleman can accept the Amendment without hurting anybody and by accepting it can do a little good. He can say. "We will give you Whitsuntide to think it over in order that you can make up your minds". That, of course, may be to his own advantage, possibly preventing people from rushing into Petitions which. on reflection, they would not have troubled to submit.
It is obviously in the public interest. What is the difficulty about it? It is the difficulty which seems to afflict every Minister in the House, that somewhere or other is a civil servant saying to him, "This is not what we have done before. Therefore, if you do it now, they will want you to do it again, and you will have created a precedent". I appreciate, of course, that it is the fundamental faith of Tories not to create precedents, that the essence of Conservatism is to leave things alone and that the fundamental principle of Toryism is to go on doing what one's grandfather did. As far as rights of turbary are concerned, I am all in favour of that.
When the Minister rises on a matter of this complexity, on which the House

has not had any legal advice, let alone the Dorset labourers, and says that they must prepare the Petition over the weekend and that it must be received by the second post on Tuesday or delivered in person by Tuesday, it is altogether unreasonable and it casts some doubt on the good faith of the arguments given before the House on Second Reading. There is no ground whatever for refusing this modest Amendment, and I hope that my hon. Friends will support me in demanding that it be accepted.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: The first time I met the Minister, many years ago, I made him write 50 lines, and if, tonight, I find it necessary to criticise his attitude I know he will appreciate that I do it in the most kindly and helpful way possible. I find his reply very disappointing and most unconvincing. I hope that it was a reply given without proper consideration and that now that he has had the advantage of a whispered colloquy with the Chief Patronage Secretary it may be possible for him to take a more flexible view.
This is a hybrid Bill, which raises issues of great complexity and, I think, very considerable importance. We are doing something which the House always hesitates to do—interfering with the common law rights of individuals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) said, it is most important that we should give the appearance of doing everything that is possible to protect the rights of those individuals.
I do not think that five days is a reasonable length of time to give to people circumstanced as these commoners, if they exist at all, are circumstanced at present. Some years ago I was on the Select Committee on hybrid Bill procedure which made recommendations upon which the period of time is based, but it was certainly not our intention at that time that five days should be the standard period. It was the intention that five days should be the minimum time.
I think that the right hon. Gentleman could take a more generous view than he appears to be taking. Most hybrid Bills are a great deal simpler than this. I remember one hybrid Bill relating to the purchase of the Westminster Hospital


site when, for months before the Bill came before the House, there were discussions between the Ministry of Works, the hospital authority and the London Transport Executive. That was an occasion on which to have insisted on five days would probably have been reasonable.
I find it very surprising that, having told us how difficult it was to discover the existence of these rights, the Minister, in the course of his refusal to accept the Amendment, said that the existence of these common rights was common knowledge in the district a year ago.

Mr. Maudling: What I thought. I said was that the fact that these commons were to be taken by the Atomic Energy Authority and the rights abolished was known a year ago.

Mr. Greenwood: That is very different from what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier, and I am glad of the correction.
Nevertheless, as hon. Members on both sides have stressed, the need for this Bill has been known, or should have been

known, by the Ministry for at least five months, and it ought to have been possible to give the House longer notice than it has been given and certainly a longer time for consideration. We have, however, accepted—I think with great good humour—the fact that the Ministry has been rushing us on this point.

It will not inconvenience the House to add 10 days to the time in which petitioners can deposit their petitions to the House; but it will make a great deal of difference to the people concerned, and we cannot really believe that it will make any difference to the speed at which this project will be developed. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman—especially now that he has the assistance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—will be able to take a more accommodating and flexible view than he was able to take a few moments ago.

Question put, That "fifth" stand part of the Question:—

The House divided:Ayes 221, Noes 172.

Division No. 129.]
AYES
[6.41 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Cooke, Robert C.
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.


Aitken, W. T.
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Gulden, Harold


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Alport, C. J. M.
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hare, Rt. Hon. J. H.


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Harrison, A. B. C (Maldon)


Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Arbuthnot, John
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Armstrong, C. W.
Cunningham, Knox
Harvie-Watt, Sir George


Ashton, H.
Currie, G. B. H.
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel


Atkins, H. E.
Davidson, Viscountess
Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Baldwin, A. E.
Digby, Simon Wingfleld
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.


Balniel, Lord
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)


Barlow, Sir John
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)


Barter, John
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)


Baxter, Sir Beverley
du Cann, E. D. L.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Hirst, Geoffrey


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Duthie, W. S.
Hobson, John (Warwick &amp; Leam'gt'n)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Hope, Lord John


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Elliott, R.W.(N'castle upon Tyne,N.)
Hornby, R. P.


Bidgood, J. C.
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Errington, Sir Eric
Horobin, Sir Ian


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Erroll, F. J.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence


Black, C. W.
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Howard, Hon. Grevllle (St. Ives)


Body, R. F.
Fell, A.
Howard, John (Test)


Boothby, Sir Robert
Finlay, Graeme
Hyde, Montgomery


Boyle, Sir Edward
Fisher, Nigel
Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry


Braine, B. R.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Fort, R.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)


Bryan, P.
Gamer-Evans, E. H.
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)


Burden, F. F. A.
Gibson-Watt, D.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Glover, D.
Joseph, Sir Keith


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A.(Saffron Walden)
Godber, J. B.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot


Campbell, Sir David
Gomme-Duncan, Col. Sir Alan
Kaberry, D.


Carr, Robert
Goodhart, Philip
Keegan, D.


Cary, Sir Robert
Gough, C. F. H.
Kerby, Capt. H. B.


Channon, Sir Henry
Graham, Sir Fergus
Kerr, H. W.


Chichester-Clark, R.
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Kershaw, J. A.


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Green, A.
Kirk, P. M.


Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Gresham Cooke, R.
Lagden, G. W.




Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Neave, Airey
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Langford-Holt, J. A.
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)


Leavey, J. A.
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Legge-Bourke, Maj, E. A. H.
Oakshott, H. D.
Speir, R. M.


Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Orr Capt. L. P. S.
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Stevens, Geoffrey


Linstead, Sir H. N.
Osborne, C.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Page, R. G.
Storey, S.


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.
Partridge, E.
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Lucas, Sir Jooelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Teeling, W.


McAdden, S. J.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Temple, John M.


McKibbin, A. J.
Pott, H. P.
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Powell, J. Enoch
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Vane, W. M. F.


MacLeod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Raikes, Sir Victor
Vickers, Miss Joan


Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Ramsden, J. E.
Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.


Maddan, Martin
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Hornoastle)
Remnant, Hon. P.
Wall, Major Patrick


Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Ridsdale, J. E.
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Marshall, Douglas
Rippon, A. G. F.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Mathew, R.
Robertson, Sir David
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Webbe, Sir H.


Mawby, R. L.
Roper, Sir Harold
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Medlioott, Sir Frank
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Russell, R. S.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.



Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Sharpies, R. C.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Nabarro, G. D, N.
Shepherd, William
Mr. Barber and Mr. Hughes-Young


Nairn, D. L. S.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)





NOES


Ainsley, J. W.
Greenwood, Anthony
Mason, Roy


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Grey, C. F.
Mellish, R. J.


Allen, Scholefieid (Crewe)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Messer, Sir F.


Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mitchison, G. R.


Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Monslow, W.


Benson, G.
Grimond, J.
Moody, A. S.


Beswick, Frank
Hale, Leslie
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Blackburn, F.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm,S)


Blenkinsop, A.
Hamilton, W. W.
Mort, D. L.


Boardman, H.
Hannan, W.
Moyle, A.


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)
Mulley, F. W.


Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)
Hastings, S.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Bowles, F. G.
Hayman, F. H.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)


Boyd, T. C.
Henderson. Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Oliver, G. H.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Herbison, Miss M.
Orbach, M.


Brookway, A. F.
Holmes, Horace
Owen, W. J.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Houghton, Douglas
Padley, W. E.


Burke, W. A.
Hubbard, T. F.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Palmer, A. M. F.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hunter, A. E.
Pargiter, C. A.


Champion, A, J.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Parker, J.


Chapman, W. D.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Parkin, B. T.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Paton, John


Clunie, J.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Pentland, N.


Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Collins, V.J.(Shoreditch &amp; Finsbury)
Jeger, George (Goole)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Cove, W. G.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Kenyon, C.
Proctor, W. T.


Davies, Rt. Hon. Clement (Montgomery)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
King, Dr. H. M.
Randall, H. E.


Dodds, N. N.
Lawson, G. M.
Rankin, John


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Ledger, R. J.
Redhead, E. C.


Edelman, M.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Reeves, J.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)
Lindgren, G. S.
Reid, William


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lipton, Marcus
Rhodes, H.


Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Logan, D. G.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Mabon, Dr. J, Dickson
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
MacColl, J. E.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Finch, H. J.
MacDermot, Niall
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Fletcher, Eric
McInnes, J.
Ross, William


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Royle, C.


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Car'then)
Mahon, Simon
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Gibson, C. W.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfd, E.)
Skeffington, A. M.







Sorensen, R. W.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Willey, Frederick


Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Steele, T.
Thornton, E.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Tomney, F.
Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)


Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R. (Ipswich)
Viant, S. P.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Stonehouse, John
Wade, D. W.
Winter-bottom, Richard


Stones, W. (Consett)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Woof, R. E.


Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)
West, D. G.
Younger, Rt. Hon. K.


Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Wheeldon, W. E.
Zilliacus, K.


Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Wilcock, Croup Capt. C. A. B.



Sylvester, G. O.
Wilkins, W. A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Pearson and Mr. Deer.

Main Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That any Petitions against the Bill presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office at any time not later than the fifth day after this day in which the Petitioners pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel or Agents, shall stand referred to the Committee, but that if no such Petition is presented, or if all such Petitions are withdrawn before the meeting of the Committee, the order for the committal of the Bill to a Select Committee shall be discharged and the Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Any Petitioner whose Petition stands referred to the Committee, subject to the Rules and Orders of the House and to

the prayer of his Petition, to be entitled to be heard by himself, his Counsel or Agents, upon his Petition provided that such Petition is prepared and signed in conformity with the Rules and Orders of the House, and the Member in Charge of the Bill to be entitled to be heard by his Counsel or Agents in favour of the Bill against such Petition:

Committee to have power to report from day to day the Minutes of the Evidence taken before them:

Three be the Quorum. —[Mr. Maudling.]

Orders of the Day — FINANCE BILL

Considered in Committee [Progress, 29th May.]

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

Clause 13. —(INCREASE OF INVESTMENT ALLOWANCES FOR SHIPS.)

6.50 p.m.

Mr. John Cronin: I beg to move, in page 10, line 14, to leave out "two-fifths" and to insert "three-tenths".
The purpose of the Amendment is very simple. The Clause doubles the investment allowance for shipping, and the Amendment is intended to increase it by 50 per cent. instead. All hon. Members feel some prejudice in favour of the shipping industry. A ship is always a graceful and pleasing thing to see and we, with our seafaring traditions, always feel kindly towards ships and the shipping industry generally. It appears, however, that a wave of marine enthusiasm has swept through the Treasury and, in the process, has swept the Chancellor of the Exchequer off his feet. The Chancellor is not always very generous with public money. Old-age pensioners, people who receive National Assistance, and war pensioners would all come to that conclusion, but here we have a case when he has actually doubled the benefit given to a limited section of the country's industry.
I say at once that I fully appreciate that the shipping industry is of enormous importance to the country's economy, and that it is obviously going through some difficulties, but those difficulties, as I propose to show, are very far from unique. There seems to be a case for a very careful examination of the position of the shipping industry before it receives this very substantial benefit. The Committee has a particular duty here thoroughly to scrutinise the Government's Clause, particularly as it will cost £11½ million a year, and the Chancellor has objected to several laudable Amendments moved from this side of the Committee which would cost very much less than that. The shipping industry will receive from the Chancellor a unique benefit. It has already, up to this time, been receiving a 20 per cent. investment allowance, and now that benefit, which itself is for all

practical purposes unique, is being doubled.
All of us will concede that the shipping industry has difficulty in replacing its ships in times of inflation and high taxation. Nobody is seriously contesting that. We all know that the shipping industry is faced with a situation where shipbuilding costs have increased by 7 per cent. a year on average since the war, and are still increasing. But these difficulties are by no means the difficulties of the shipping industry alone. There are many other industries which are having great difficulty in replacing their capital equipment for the same reasons of continuous inflation and the problem of finding money out of taxed profits. To argue the present difficulties of the shipping industry does not in itself provide a justification for this generous concession by the Chancellor.
It has been widely mooted that foreign owners have particular advantages in being able to register their ships under flags of convenience; in other words, by registering their ships under the flags of Liberia, Panama, Honduras, or Costa Rica, they virtually escape all taxation. This, obviously, gives foreign shipowners an advantage in competition with British shipowners.
But, once again, I would remind the Committee—indeed, it is self-evident—that this advantage accrues to any industry which has as its headquarters a country where there is little or no taxation. The disadvantage to British shipowners is shared by all British industries which have to compete against industries in other countries where taxation is either non-existent or very low.
The Committee must, therefore, consider seriously why the shipping industry was given this almost unique advantage. Why not the textile industry also, for instance? The textile industry has to compete with other countries where taxation is very low, and it has the same difficulty in replacing its capital equipment out of taxed profits.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro: Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting, since he mentions textiles, that it would be practical sense to take up the Kidderminster carpet industry and put it in West Africa or some other British


Colonial Territory because of a tax advantage? Are there no other considerations?

Mr. Cronin: I take the hon. Gentleman's point.
The shipping industry has a unique mobility in its capital equipment. But I must point out that it can use this mobility only with the consent of the Treasury, except in certain very limited respects. As the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has just pointed out, shipping firms can move, for instance, to Bermuda, set up a registered office there, and escape British taxation, but they can do that, according to Section 468 of the Income Tax Act, 1952, only after obtaining permission from the Treasury. Presumably, the Treasury would not give such permission in an instance where it would be so clearly to the national disadvantage. In fact, I think it was only about two months ago that a large shipping company did apply for such Treasury permission and was, very properly refused.
The only alternative to setting up a subsidiary in Bermuda, with Treasury permission, is to set up a completely new business, with less than 50 per cent. of the shares being held by the British company. That involves immense legal difficulties, and it has one very practical difficulty in that such a company could not remit dividends to British shareholders without losing all the benefits of lower taxation. It is, therefore, most unlikely that British shareholders would agree to such an arrangement. I suggest to the Committee, therefore, that the threat of the flight to Bermuda is, at most, a very dubious one, and shipping companies cannot force the Chancellor to take action on their behalf by using that threat.
We have spoken of higher rates of taxation in this country, but we are by no means unique in having high rates of taxation. In Sweden, Denmark and Norway taxation is very high. I think that the Chancellor would agee, if he investigates the matter, that in Norway shipowners are taxed much more highly than they are in this country. Yet there has been a steady increase in the Norwegian merchant fleet since the war.

Mr. Nabarro: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to mislead the

Committee. It is true that the standard rate of taxation in Norway is higher than it is here, but the depreciation provisions accorded by the Norwegian Government to shipowners are very much better than they are here, and that is a great advantage to the shipowner in Norway.

Mr. Cronin: I accept the suggestion that the depreciation position is more convenient in some ways, but eventually there must come a time in all depreciation provisions when the effect is equivalent; so the advantage can be only for a certain length of time.
7.0 p.m.
We must also consider what will happen to the very large subsidy that the Chancellor is proposing to give to the shipping industry. Ostensibly, this investment allowance will be used to obtain new ships. Where are these new ships to be built? British shipyards now have their order books full for the next seven years. In parenthesis, I do not regard that as a matter of particular credit to them, because British shipyards are now occupying an increasingly smaller percentage of the world's shipbuilding. It would, however, be out of order for me to pursue that aspect.
To what purpose will this investment allowance be devoted? Will it be spent in buying ships in Great Britain, or in Holland, Germany or Japan? That is a very relevant point when we consider the handing over of this handsome financial advantage.
We then turn to the financial health of the shipping industry. I do not want to weary the Committee with figures, but I have details of some of the larger British companies and they show distinctly a healthy financial tendency. One finds in all of them that there has been a steady increase in profits year by year. In one case, a prominent shipping company announces results today in the Financial Times from which one sees that the trading profit has nearly doubled.
I do not suggest that all shipping companies have doubled their profits in the last year, but there has been a steady, healthy increase and shipping shares, recently at least, have reached a record high level. Does the Chancellor know of any unemployment in the shipping industry? Does he know of any ships being


laid up? Is there any evidence at all that the shipping industry is in serious financial ill health? The Committee must seriously consider what will be the effect of the Clause and of this generous concession on the finance of shipping companies generally.
I make no claim to be a statistician of any kind, let alone on shipping matters, but I consulted The Times of 17th April this year, in which there appeared an article entitled "Tax Relief for Replacement of Ships", written by The Times Shipping Correspondent, who, presumably, knows a good deal more about this problem than most of us here. I should like to quote from this article.
I should like the Chancellor to pay particular attention to this passage, because it would be very helpful to the Committee if he could either confirm or refute the figures which are given, or produce alternative figures to throw more light on the subject. This is the passage and I consider it to be important:
…it is possible to arrive at the statistical conclusion that, assuming a continuance of the 40 per cent. allowance and an increase in ship prices of slightly over 7 per cent. annually (which is roughly what it has been since the war) an owner with a fleet of five ships replacing every four years would have 95 per cent. of the cost of replacement out of tax-free profit…. An owner with fewer ships would be less well placed, while one with more would be comparably better off …".
I should like the Committee to consider this seriously. Here, quite clearly, is a suggestion that a small fleet of ships will have its replacements met to the extent of 95 per cent. from tax-free profits that is, assuming a continuation of a 7 per cent. increase in shipyard prices every year.
Is it wise to assume that that serious inflation of shipbuilding costs will continue? Supposing it does not, shipping companies can have enormous financial advantages. The figures I have quoted apply to a small company with only five ships. A large company with many more ships will have a very substantial advantage. If the figures are accurate, it will be able to make replacements every four years to the extent of more than 100 per cent. from tax-free profits. That indicates that the Chancellor is behaving with rather more generosity than the situation requires.
I have put forward points which are very relevant to the Clause and these are

all questions which require careful answer. The Chancellor is not usually very generous with public money and I hope that he will now give us an explanation of what he is doing in this case.

Colonel Sir Leonard Ropner: The hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) has not explained to the Committee that the result of his Amendment, if accepted, would be to restrict the investment allowance to 30 per cent. instead of the 40 per cent. proposed in the Clause. In other words, it seems to me, the hon. Member and perhaps some of his right hon. Friends desire a much smaller alleviation of those conditions which certainly encourage, and in some cases compel, British shipowners to make use of flags of convenience, the very thing about which the hon. Member was complaining in his misinformed, misdirected and altogether unhelpful remarks.
I do not want to be rude to the hon. Member, but I suggest that a Member who represents Loughborough and who, perhaps, has no direct knowledge of the shipping industry, should not attempt to deal, as the hon. Member tried to do, with the economics of the shipping industry. I shall have more to say about the hon. Member's remarks.

Mr. Harold Wilson: This is a dangerous doctrine for the hon. and gallant Baronet to advance. Does not he know of the considerable rows on the whole question of the levying of ship money in inland towns about 300 years ago? There is a great deal of argument about whether the question of ships is a matter purely for seaport constituencies. Surely, the hon. and gallant Member will agree that all hon. Members should make the most careful scrutiny of all proposed changes in taxation, as of all proposed changes in Government expenditure. I hope that he will not pursue his argument too far.

Sir L. Ropner: I tried not to be rude to the hon. Member for Loughborough, but the right hon. Gentleman tempts me to withdraw any such intention. I can now say more bluntly that the hon. Member for Loughborough made an exhibition of himself and that anybody who knows nothing about the economics of the shipping industry should not attempt to deal with the matter in debate.

Mr. Douglas Jay: For our enlightenment, can the hon. and gallant Baronet tell us whether he is speaking as somebody interested or not interested in the industry?

Sir L. Ropner: I thought the right hon. Gentleman knew, as, I think, every other Member of Parliament knows, that 1 am connected with the shipping industry. I have said so on a score of occasions in the House. I am sorry that I did not mention it again at the beginning of my speech. I certainly intended to do so later in my remarks.
On more than one occasion, I have had cause to remind hon. and right hon. Members opposite not only that the shipping industry is highly competitive, but that the competition is completely international. To some extent at least, I think that meets the point made by the hon. Member for Loughborough when he asserted that the shipping industry was not in any way a unique industry. It certainly is.
It may be true that a few passengers prefer to sail in ships flying their own national flag, but the vast majority of passengers and all the shippers of cargo, whether dry or oil, speaking generally, and other things being equal, really do not consider at all either the colour or the design of the jack which flies from the gaff at the stern of the ship. Consequently, British ships are in direct competition in all the free markets of the world, and throughout the world with the ships of all other nations. If, therefore, British shipping is placed under some disadvantage peculiar to ships flying the Red Ensign, the British shipping will suffer. The inevitable result will be not only a decline in the number of British ships, or at any rate, a rapid fall in the proportion of world tonnage which is British-owned, but, in addition, we shall find that foreign ships will become more efficient, more modern and more able to compete successfully, especially if the rates of freight continue to decline.
All this is happening, and moreover has been happening for some years. For British shipping, vis-à-vis its foreign competitors, has suffered and is now suffering from one handicap peculiar to itself, and that handicap is, of course, the crippling effect of direct taxation, which extracts from the industry sums of money which

should be available for building new ships or modernising existing fleets.
Now I come to another point which was raised by the hon. Member for Loughborough, for there is an apparently paradoxical consideration which enters into this question. It is that the greater the prosperity enjoyed by shipping, the greater is the handicap imposed on British shipping. I think I can explain that in this way. If the rates of freight in all world trades were so low that the ships of no nation earned any profits, if, in other words, there were no profits to tax, then the comparative level of direct taxation as between this country and our foreign competitors would be completely immaterial.
But when profits are high—and the hon. Member for Loughborough was at least right in this respect, that at periods during the last few years profits have been high—and when foreign competitors are allowed to retain those profits with which to build new ships, while British companies, through the operation of Income Tax and Profits Tax, are prohibited from accumulating the necessary reserves with which to acquire new tonnage, then British shipping falls behind, and inevitably falls behind.
Month after month and year after year, high taxation is doing that which the submarines, neither of the Kaiser nor of Hitler, were able to achieve, namely, sweep the Red Ensign from the seas. It is a slow and perhaps unspectacular business, but it is very certain, and it is happening today. Some of my younger friends on both sides of the Committee may regard me as elderly, if not old.

Mr. Nabarro: Certainly not; young and virile.

Sir L. Ropner: However that may be, I myself have been connected with the shipping industry sufficiently long to see the British Mercantile Marine reduced from over 40 per cent. of world tonnage to something less than 20 per cent.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. H. Rhodes: I respect the hon. and gallant Baronet's great knowledge of this subject, but I should like to ask him this question. Does he think that a 40 per cent. investment allowance will stop this process of the Red Ensign being swept off the seas? Is the 40 per cent. allowance enough?

Sir L. Ropner: I was going to come to that point, but I think I can say that if it is not enough, it is at least something, and that anything in the right direction is acceptable to the shipping industry, for the reasons which I am trying to point out.
I was pointing out to the Committee the really fearful fall in the proportion of British tonnage to world tonnage during a comparatively short time. If I may give one more figure, it is in regard to tanker tonnage. In as short a period as the last twenty years, British tanker tonnage has increased by 130 per cent., while world tanker tonnage has increased by no less than 210 per cent.
Now I come to the point about which the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) questioned me. It is because Clause 13 goes some way towards relieving British shipping of the burden of high taxation that British owners and British seamen welcome the proposal to increase the investment allowance from 20 per cent. to 40 per cent. There is at least one hon. Member opposite—and for all I know the debate on this Amendment may show in the next few minutes that he is supported by other hon. and right hon. Members opposite—who wants to cut that proposal from 40 per cent. to 30 per cent.
Why do they want to do that? Is the hon. Member for Loughborough content to see our share of world shipping growing ever less? Does he agree—and perhaps some right hon. Gentleman opposite will answer this question—that high taxation is the cause of that, or do hon. and right hon. Members opposite think that British shipowners have suddenly become incompetent or British crews lazy and inefficient? Does the hon. Member for Loughborough know the value of the British Mercantile Marine as a dollar earner, and do hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite remember that in two world wars the merchant seamen and the ships in which they sailed saved this country from starvation and defeat, and suffered pretty grievous casualties in doing so? Does not the hon. Member for Loughborough want our ships to compete on level terms with our foreign competitors? Does the employment of our seamen or the men who work in our shipyards mean nothing to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite? if the

hon. Member and his 'hon. Friends divide the Committee on the Amendment, we and the country will know the answers to these questions.

Mr. Cronin: The hon. Member made some very sweeping generalities and certainly quite a strong emotional appeal, but cannot he produce some figures and facts to support his argument? So far, we have had only assertions.

Mr. Rhodes: If the process of sweeping our fleet from the seas has been going on for so long—and the figures quoted by the hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner) of tanker tonnages are very significant—will this 40 per cent. initial allowance stop that process or not? It is quite easy for people who know how to run ships to go to Bermuda, or wherever they can find the accommodation, and obtain money from the New York bankers to start a new company. It would appear that a £100 company started in a place like Bermuda would just do the job. I want to understand the implications of this matter, and I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash will throw some light on it.
Let us suppose that freight rates go down and there is more intensive competition from the people who already have their ships on the seas. Suppose that those ships have been written down in value and those people are able to compete on the basis of cost with our people here. What is to prevent this process worsening, especially if we go the whole length, as many people would like us to do, and enter the European Free Trade Area?
If hon. Members take the trouble to read the Economic Survey of Europe they will find strong arguments on this subject showing that America and countries like Germany are very keen about the Free Trade Area because of the chance that will be offered to increase the importance of the Rhine Delta. All the facts and the figures stated in that Survey are worth reading.
I do not see how we will stop this trend by giving shipowners a 40 per cent. investment allowance, If we give them 40 per cent. they will be coming back for a further 10 per cent., 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. I feel rather gloomy about the whole matter. If we are to


have any ships at all sailing under the Red Ensign they will have to be publicly owned. [Laughter.] It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to laugh. I am simply stating what I think is the trend, and I do not see how a 40 per cent. investment allowance will stop this trend. Neither do I see how the reduction of 10 per cent proposed in the Amendment could possibly affect this process.
I shall not vote for the Amendment, because my view is that it is only playing with the problem. I believe that the trend will go on and become even more serious and that it will have to be tackled on the basis of a national emergency not only in relation to shipping, but also in relation to the facilities in this country for unloading ships.
I cannot get out of my mind the fact that, although we have had better and faster ships built since the war, liners before the war made five complete journeys to Australia and back in two years, but now, with all their modern advantages, they cannot make five round journeys in less than three years, If our ships are taking 50 per cent. more time to make these journeys I reckon that this is a national emergency and that 10 per cent. one way or the other, whether an increase or a decrease, in the investment allowance will make no difference.

Mr. Douglas Marshall: I should like to speak briefly against the Amendment. In nearly twelve years' membership of the House of Commons I find this one of the oddest Amendments that Her Majesty's Opposition have ever put on the Notice Paper. The hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) was in rather a dilemma, because by proposing to decrease the investment allowance from 40 per cent. to 30 per cent. he was immediately agreeing that the principle as applied to shipping was not exactly the same as that applied to other industries. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) said that the investment allowance was not enough.

Mr. Rhodes: No, I did not. I was only asking whether it was enough.

Mr. Marshall: The hon. Member gave the impression that it might not be enough.

Mr. Rhodes: It may not be.

Mr. Marshall: The hon. Member went a stage further and said that the British Mercantile Marine should be nationalised.

Mr. Rhodes: Oh, no. The hon. Member should not talk so silly. I was posing a perfectly straight question: is the investment allowance enough to stop this trend? There is no need to argue round the subject. If the allowance is not enough, let us give more, but we can give so much that it becomes 100 per cent. and then the public might just as well own the industry.

Mr. Marshall: The hon. Member now suggests that if the investment allowance is not enough it should be made more at a later date.

Mr. Rhodes: I do.

Mr. Marshall: I agree, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is taking due note that if he is able to raise the investment allowance in a later Budget he will have the support not only of his hon. Friends, but also the support of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne.

Mr. Rhodes: Up to 100 per cent.

Mr. Marshall: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner) has given the facts and figures. As far as I can gather, there was only one thing which he did not say, but which might be said for the sake of the record. The total tonnage of dry, cargo vessels trading under the British flag is not as great now as it has been. Perhaps that should be noted, apart from the percentage difference in world tanker tonnage which my hon. and gallant Friend mentioned.
As far as I could see, the argument of the mover of the Amendment impressed me that he was arguing, and doing so remarkably well, for the Clause as it stands. If he reads what he has said, he will find that his argument stands well to the Clause and argues well against his own Amendment.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Nabarro: I have been concerned in debates upon shipping matters in this Chamber for a number of years. This evening we have listened to two of the most discreditable speeches from the Opposition benches which Socialists have


ever made during a Finance Bill. They are in direct contradiction to the principles expressed by their own leaders when they sat on these benches in 1951.
When I listened this evening to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) I asked one of my hon. Friends to obtain for me the OFFICIAL REPORT for a late and lengthy sitting on the Committee stage of the Finance Bill on 8th June, 1951, when, it will be remembered, the Socialist Government had decided to withdraw nearly all the capital allowances then in being, namely the initial allowances, at a rate of 40 per cent., due to the exceptional demands of the rearmament programme. All initial allowances were therefore withdrawn save that special provisions were retained for shipping.

Mr. Jay: Quite right.

Mr. Nabarro: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman says "Quite right." I am about to quote his right hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards), who was then Economic Secretary to the Treasury. This is what he said:
 During the Budget debates, although little anxiety was expressed about the suspension of initial allowances in general, a number of hon. Members referred to the exceptional case of shipping. On the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary "—
That was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), whom we are also pleased to see in his place—
 said that, in view of the special importance and circumstances of shipping, it had been decided that we would put down an Amendment at this stage of the Bill excepting from the suspension of initial allowances any expenditure on the provision of a ship even though it may have been made after 5th April, 1952, on account of ships that were actually in course of building on Budget day."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th June, 1951; Vol. 488. c. 1451 and 1452.]
Later initial allowances for all ship construction were retained and it gave voice to the then opinion of the Socialist Government that shipping occupied a special and exceptional place in our national affairs and our economy. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to interrupt?

Mr. Rhodes: If I may say so, there is hardly a subject on which the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has

not spoken at one time or another and posed as an expert, but I cannot say that I am taking his points now. There has never been any question on this side of the Committee that the shipping industry is a special case. Of course it is. We want to know how special, how big, the investment allowance needs to be to keep ships flying the British flag.

Mr. Nabarro: If the hon. Gentleman will curb his impatience for a few moments, I will tell him in my own way exactly how special a position is being created for shipping by my right hon. Friend in the terms of this Finance Bill.
In my mind the supreme importance of the shipping industry from a practical point of view is that it contributes earnings in the order of £450 million annually to our balance of payments and our national economy. That is a contribution bigger than that of any other single industry, and it ought to have paramount consideration in time of peace, as in time of war, for the reasons expressed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner).
A great deal has been said' about flags of convenience and British companies transferred to Bermuda. In fact the Bermuda case is a single one, a somewhat exceptional one, and, with great respect to the opinions expressed earlier, a relatively unimportant one. What is of major importance is what is happening with the increase in the tonnages in flags of convenience that are being registered in such countries as Liberia, Costa Rica, Honduras and the remainder. I quote, because it will lead to the point about the amount of the capital allowance, which is the subject matter of this Amendment—

Mr. Rhodes: Investment allowance.

Mr. Nabarro: I said "capital allowance". The hon. Gentleman is so ignorant of these matters that he evidently thinks an investment allowance—

Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Rhodes rose—

Mr. Nabarro: No, let me finish—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): If the hon. Member does not give way, the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) must resume his seat.

Mr. Nabarro: I will give way in a moment. The hon. Gentleman is so ignorant of these matters that evidently he does not know that a capital allowance for tax purposes may be either an investment allowance or an initial allowance.

Mr. Rhodes: All right, I will take the hon. Gentleman on. He has charged me with being ignorant about this. Let me explain to him the difference between the initial allowance and the investment allowance. On this basis it is 140 per cent. If it had been on the basis of a 40 per cent. initial allowance it would still have been 100 per cent., as the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Barkston Ash knows full well. That is why this is known as an investment allowance, which is totally different from an initial allowance.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman continues to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. I am well aware of the difference between an investment allowance and an initial allowance, and I will deal with this point in a few moments if he will contain himself.

Mr. Rhodes: Come on, get on with it.

Mr. Nabarro: I was saying, Mr. Hynd, when the hon. Gentleman started to bawl at me from his place on the bench, that the Annual Report of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom brought out very well this point about the significant increase in flags of convenience by these non-maritime Powers, in its statement for 1956–57:
…a critical analysis was made of the reasons for the ever-increasing number of vessels registered in Panama, Liberia, Honduras arid Costa Rica. By mid-1956, the total tonnage registered in those countries had increased to 10·4 million gross tons. as compared with 8·7 million gross tons in mid-1955. Particularly remarkable was the growth of Liberian tonnage from 4 million tons in the middle of 1955 to over 5½million tons by the middle of 1956. This last addition, which included over I million tons in six months, is rather more than the increase in the whole United Kingdom fleet over the past five years.

Mr. Rhodes: So what?

Mr. Nabarro: I am coming to that in a moment. I wish the hon. Gentleman would allow me to do so. I listened to him in silence.

Sir Frederick Messer: That is a change.

Mr. Nabarro: In fact, in a period of six months Liberia, a non-maritime Power, added more tonnage than the United Kingdom had added in ten times as long a period.
The hon. Gentleman asked, "So what?" The answer to his intervention is that the reason for this phenomenal increase in Liberian tonnage is the fact that owners registered there are paying no taxation, excepting only a tiny registration fee, whereas the average amount paid in direct taxation by a shipowner registered in the United Kingdom is of the order of 50 to 55 per cent. In such circumstances of grossly unfair competition, it follows that unless my right hon. Friend takes, first, unilateral action and, secondly, highly discriminatory action in favour of the United Kingdom shipping industry, the Red Duster will indeed he driven from the seas in the course of the next few years.
Now I turn to exactly how effective is the action of my right hon. Friend in this Budget. I advocated during my speech in the Budget debate and again on the Second Reading of this Bill that there should be a total depreciation allowance over five years for ships which. I thought, would give a bigger advantage than the treatment proposed by my right hon. Friend. It is a debatable point whether the formula I then advanced or my right hon. Friend's formula would give the greater advantage to shipping. Much must depend on the nature of the fleet of ships concerned and how many ships are plying for a particular shipping company.
I consulted the financial director of the P. & O. line and asked for his views on my right hon. Friend's proposition. The P. & O. line is the biggest shipping business in the world, and the financial director of it might be expected to understand very thoroughly the taxation provisions that my right hon. Friend has enunciated. This is what he wrote to me:
 At present on the replacement value basis 49 per cent, of the cost of a ship can be written off after the first five years and when the 40 per cent, investment allowance is added, a total of 89 per cent. of the cost of a ship can be charged against profits in the first five years of its life. In addition, however, the ship owner will still have 51 per cent. of the cost available "—


The 51 per cent. is arrived at by the deduction of 89 per cent. from 140 per cent.—
 to write off in the future, whereas under a depreciation system on a straight five-year basis "—
which I had advocated—
 he would be only able to write off a total of 100 per cent. over five years. There is no doubt. therefore, that the owner of a single ship would feel that he is better off with a 40 per cent. investment allowance than he would be under an alternative system.
I believe that if it is the case—and the financial director of the P. & O. Line might well be relied upon to state the case clearly—that under my right hon. Friend's provision of allowing, a 40 per cent. investment allowance, 89 per cent. of the total capital cost of the vessel can be written off against profits in the first five years' and, in addition, the shipowner will have a hedge against inflation of the 40 per cent. investment allowance on the cost, being the difference between 100 per cent. and 140 per cent., during the length of life of the ship.
That is a major contribution, indeed, made by my right hon. Friend to the grossly unfair practice inherent in the system of flags of convenience registered in the non-maritime countries oversea, if this Amendment were accepted, then the 89 per cent. to which I have referred would become 69 per cent. and would make the British shipowner considerably worse off in competition with flags of convenience.

Mr. Rhodes: Seventy-nine per cent.

Mr. Nabarro: I am sorry, it was a slip of the tongue. It is 79 per cent.
I cannot believe that this is a serious Amendment by Her Majesty's Opposition. I cannot believe that any responsible leader of the Socialist Party would willingly and intentionally move in the House a financial measure which they know to be highly detrimental to our most important industry and our most important earner of foreign currency.
I would wager that they will not divide on this issue. They dare not divide on it. We could hold them up to scorn all over the country, whether as representatives of inland constituencies, like myself, or representatives of shipping constituencies, like my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams).

On either hand, we could hold them up to scorn and derision for their attack on our most important industry and the generous, highly discriminatory and very valuable concession which my right hon. Friend is rightly proposing to give to the shipping industry in this Budget.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: I do not intend to delay the Committee long in supporting the Chancellor and opposing as vigorously as I can, but briefly, this thoroughly mischievous Amendment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has just said, if one looks at this in a partisan sense, the party opposite is doing itself no good in trying by the Amendment to restrict the competitive ability of the most fundamental and most important of all our industries.
The Amendment has, perhaps, one value in that it has given to the Committee an opportunity to pay tribute to the British Merchant Marine, to the companies and to the men who operate the ships. It has given those of us who appreciate the industry a chance to discuss its merits. The regrettable thing is that, as in many debates on Finance Bills, few people have in fact shown an interest in the British Merchant Marine. Indeed, it might well be said that the only time respect and tribute is paid to the British merchant fleet is in time of war, in time of peril and in time of crisis. There is one exception to that.
That is the action which has been taken by the Chancellor in the Bill. As my right hon. Friend has just said, it is highly discriminatory and highly satisfactory. I believe that there should be two main objectives for the Chancellor whenever he turns his mind to shipping matters. They should be to enable the companies to replace their fleets so that the British Merchant Marine has the best, the most efficient and the most economical ships in the world. But replacement is not enough. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner) mentioned the decline in the percentage of the world fleet which is registered in the United Kingdom. Over a very short period of time, the percentage of the world fleet flying the Red Ensign has declined from 40 per cent. to 19 per cent. These are the most vital figures which have been quoted in this short debate.
The other point which my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. D. Marshall) mentioned was that the dry cargo tonnage registered in the United Kingdom is smaller today than it was before the war. The Chancellor has been courageous, but there is one question which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) asked and which I think is relevant: does this alteration go far enough? It is a question which cannot possibly be answered with any ultimate conviction in a debate like this. We may see the answer over a period of time. If it is not enough, then it will be within the power of my right hon. Friend in a subsequent Budget to do something more. I believe that the Committee should reject as firmly as it can this mischievous and misleading Amendment.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Nigel Birch): We have had an interesting although slightly acrimonious debate on this subject, but I think that the measure of agreement in the Committee is rather greater than might appear on the surface. We are all agreed that this is a unique industry which deserves and must have special treatment. That is admitted by implication in the Amendment.
We are, also, all convinced of the national importance of the industry and we know that our relative share of the shipping of the world has declined since before the war—the actual total volume of shipping has gone up slightly, but our relative share has gone down slightly—and we all agree that this industry is inevitably subjected to the full blast of competition and, in particular, competition from ships sailing under flags of convenience.
I thought that the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) treated that question a little lightly in comparing a ship sailing under a flag of convenience —a Liberian ship, let us say—with a factory producing goods in Liberia. It is not quite the same thing, because the ship is competing upon absolutely equal terms with our own ships; it does not have to export something from Liberia to this country.
Not only have we felt the blast of competition from flags of convenience; it has

been necessary in the Budget to exclude the shipping industry from the provisions of Part IV, dealing with overseas trade corporations. That is necessary, because of our taxation agreements with various other countries. It is clear that in periods of rising prices the cost of replacing capital assets is an onerous one and it is particularly onerous in the case of the shipping industry, because capital costs relative to operative costs are higher than in most other industries.
That brings me to my last point—the question whether my right hon. Friend has selected exactly the right figure. Very careful thought was given to this question. We were certain that we had to take special steps about the shipping industry, and it was decided that an investment allowance was the right way of taking those steps. My right hon. Friend obtained the best advice that he could and thought about the question very carefully. We believe that the figure we have selected is the right one, and that 30 per cent. would be too low. It is not something upon which any human being can pronounce definitely, because we cannot foresee the future, but upon the evidence which is available we think that it was a reasonable figure to pick, and we believe that it will be of the greatest benefit to our Mercantile Marine.

Mr. Jay: I hope that the hon. Baronet the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner) will not mind my making a few remarks upon this subject, if only because I represent not the Midlands, but a constituency which borders on the estuary of the Thames. He seemed almost to think that the Committee ought not to discuss this subject at all. But to do credit to the Chancellor, I imagine that he did not decide to adopt this proposal without pausing to think about it, at any rate for a short time. It was quite right for my hon. Friend to move the Amendment, in order that the Government might make out a case for conceding fl 1 million worth of tax relief to one industry. It is the duty of the Committee at least to examine a proposal of this kind.
Like many other hon. Members, I start with a rather strong prejudice in favour of any case made out by the shipping of shipbuilding industry. That is partly because we all remember the appalling depression which both industries suffered


in pre-war years. In addition, I agree that it is almost impossible to over-estimate the value and importance of the shipping and shipbuilding industries as national assets.
First, there are the earnings of the shipping industry, in the shape of invisible exports, and the sales of old ships abroad, which also contribute to our balance of payments. Then there are the sales of new ships by the shipbuilding industry. It is also true, as the Economic Secretary has said, that the shipping industry has a special problem in that the cost of new ships is so high a proportion of the total value of its operations. It was for precisely those reasons that in 1951, as I well remember, we decided to grant this special concession of continuing the initial allowance in favour of the shipping industry.
Despite all these arguments, however, it does not necessarily follow that any concession, of any size, is, therefore, justified. I think that the Economic Secretary was quite right to point out that we are riot discussing whether the Red Ensign should be swept from the seas; we are merely discussing whether an investment allowance, which is already a special concession to the industry and is standing at 20 per cent., should rise to 30 per cent. or 40 per cent.
That is a matter of judgment, but when we are considering that question it is reasonable to cast our eyes—as the Chancellor must have cast his eye—upon the fact that the shipping industry notably, but also the shipbuilding industry, are also earning extremely high profits today. I do not think that the hon. Baronet would deny that. It is also true that the shipbuilding industry is not suffering from any lack of orders. It has full order books for many years ahead. I imagine that what prevents the shipbuilding industry from increasing production at the moment is not a lack of orders but a lack of yards, and, perhaps, steel.
It is the shipping industry and not the shipbuilding industry which will benefit directly from the £11 million worth of tax relief which is here proposed. It therefore does not seem to me to be irrelevant to consider the fact that, as compared with pre-war days, the shipping industry has shown a larger rise in profits

than any other industrial group in this country. When I was considering this matter in 1951, figures were laid before me which showed that that was in fact the case, and we had seriously to consider whether, in spite of all these other arguments, there was a justification for this special concession.

Mr. Nabarro: Without accepting the right hon. Gentleman's proposition that the rise in profits of the shipping industry has been inordinately large during the post-war period, I would point out that he must relate his argument to the comparative cost of replacement in the postwar period as compared with the pre-war period. This cost is higher, comparatively, than is the case in any other industry; in fact, it is nearly five times as high as it was before the war.

Mr. Jay: That may well be so. Nevertheless, whatever the level of costs may be the fact is that the profits earned are at a remarkably high level. Again, to do the Chancellor credit, I should imagine that he considered that fact before coming to a conclusion. The hon. Baronet would probably agree that shipping shares have risen more in the last year than any other group, other than oil shares, which seem to be free of all the limits and restrictions which affect other shares.

Sir L. Ropner: I do not want to make another speech, but one or two of the remarks which the right hon. Member has just made are some weeks out of date.

Mr. Jay: The hon. and gallant Member may be more up to date than I am in that respect. Nevertheless, before the Committee agrees to this provision I thought it desirable that the Government should make out a case for this very special and substantial concession.
I thought that the Economic Secretary went some way towards making out a case. He made a good point when he said that the concession in the later part of the Bill, in the matter of overseas trade corporations, does not apply to those industries, although I did not feel that he made a wholly convincing case for going as high as 40 per cent. I would have liked to hear the case argued rather more fully. I do not feel that this is a matter of principle, however; it is a matter of judgment, and for that reason I would


certainly not advise my hon. Friends to press the Amendment to a Division.

Amendment negatived.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I promised the Chancellor of the Exchequer that from time to time during the debates on the Finance Bill I would make a few desultory observations to guide him in his consideration of taxation, and this seems to be a likely place and a proper opportunity to make one or two remarks.
I spent a pleasant but not very restful morning in the greenhouse potting tomatoes, and cogitating; and if anyone should say that this is a little late in the season for potting tomatoes the answer is that with the present Purchase Tax on gardening implements I am not able to afford to acquire the necessary implements to produce the tomatoes my wife would like me to produce.
Under the intricacies of this Clause, in about five years' time the s. s. "Double Subsidy" will be setting off from Southampton on a voyage to the Southern Seas for the purpose of bringing back stacks of tomatoes which could have been grown in my greenhouse and by every person with a bit of glass in Aston, Ashby de la Zouch and Oswaldtwistle and other important places in the country.
We have a policy under which we build a ship which may carry out a load of retired shipowners wishing to settle in southern spots to avoid taxation and which will come back filled with tomatoes, and probably containing Mr. Noel Coward with another patriotic play after his period of hibernation has ended. It will steam into Southampton, consuming oil which came through the Suez Canal, and the whole area of Covent Garden will be filled with supplies of tomatoes which, if we took the Purchase Tax off gardening implements, I could have grown myself. Some people may think that I am a curious individual—I sometimes think so myself—and wonder whether there is something wrong with my mind, because I express an individualist point of view. But it is impossible to come to the conclusion that I am the only insane Member of the House of Commons, and sometimes in the circumstances I am led to believe that I am the only sane one.
If we are considering the question of shipping and the necessity of a priority in cargoes, one might think that when the Minister, or the Economic Secretary, talks about the competition of flags of convenience—some of which actually are in the British Empire anyway, because Bermuda approximates to that position—they were going to do something about it. Why do we tolerate flags of convenience? Why do we have our ports open to flags of convenience? The matter was considered by the International Labour Office a year or two ago and it reported that action should be taken, but no action has been taken by the Government.
Now we come to a much more important consideration. I had the good fortune to be supplied with a copy of the first number of  Shipping News—I believe that is what they call it—a magazine issued by the shipowners, presumably at the expense of the Chancellor, because now the Chancellor of the Exchequer provides the money for almost every motor car and paper published. They state in this magazine that the concession is welcome. They agree with the Chancellor that it will not cost anything this year, because we cannot build any ships this year. They go further and say that it will not cost the Exchequer anything next year, because the shipyards are so full that at the moment they cannot accept any more orders. Therefore, if we are to have ships built in Great Britain, orders cannot be accepted for a year or two yet and so the Chancellor will have £11 million or £12 million surplus next year to use to reduce the taxation on my gardening implements.

Mr. P. Williams: Orders can be accepted, but ships cannot be laid down.

Mr. Hale: I do not mind orders being accepted. I am making the point that when the Chancellor says that it will cost I 1 million or £12 million next year he has not examined the situation because orders cannot be executed next year, which brings us to this point: is the Chancellor encouraging ships being built abroad? Is the investment allowance to be applied to ships built abroad? Is this really an attempt to set up a foreign shipbuilding industry at the expense of the British Exchequer? If not, the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman make


nonsense. He says that it will cost £11 million or £12 million next year. The shipping authorities say that it cannot cost anything, and that even if orders are accepted they cannot be executed. That brings us to the next point which is a matter of some importance.
It is true that the United Kingdom today still has the largest active merchant shipping fleet in the world. It is equally true that over these last few years it has risen by a much smaller proportion than almost any other fleet. During the last four or five years the West German merchant shipping fleet has doubled itself and the Japanese fleet has greatly increased—

Mr. Frank Tomney: It has almost trebled.

Mr. Hale: I accept that statement from my hon. Friend without dubiety.
On the other hand, our fleet has gone from 18 million tons to about 19 million tons over four or five years. That is a serious matter. Of course, it is not the most serious matter. The most serious matter is that the British shipbuilding industry has ceased to be the largest in the world. Today the Japanese shipbuilding industry is the largest in the world. Time after time our attention is called to the economic advantages of losing a war instead of winning it. Time after time we find Germany and Japan have jumped ahead in almost every industrial activity and we are having to face competition from them. That is not because they lost the war but because both nations have had the sense not to have armaments, which has enabled them to make a rapid economic recovery. Now that we are forcing armaments upon them for their own protection, perhaps they will advance a little less rapidly.
Surely in this situation it is the shipbuilding industry which needs help. Surely it is the shipbuilding industry which needs an investment allowance. If we cannot execute the orders we have; if there is a delay of twelve months before we can lay down a ship; if there is not the plant and equipment available to increase their industry in the same way as Japan has done, one would have thought that an investment allowance would have applied. That is why I think it fair to ask the Chancellor whether his intentions

in this matter are strictly honourable, and whether he proposes to give allowances to companies who have their ships built abroad. If that be so it is a monstrous thing.

Mr. Jay: In order that we may get the facts clear, may I ask whether we are right in assuming, as I assume, that the investment allowance will be applicable to ships built abroad?

Mr. Birch: I think that part of the confusion of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) arises from the fact that normally ships are paid for by instalments and this investment allowance could be used for instalments due after the Budget date.

Mr. Hale: We are back to what I was cogitating about in the greenhouse, this quite monstrous proposal that a shipowner may say, "I will go to Japan to get my ship built cheaply, and come back to England and say, I want a special concession from the Exchequer, not merely the special concession I have been having, which has been removed from almost every other investment except scientific research and fuel. but a double special allowance so that I may spend it employing Japanese labour to build my ships'." That is monstrous, and the Economic Secretary should tell us whether the Government have applied their minds to this, or whether the problem has not occurred to them.
The shipowner will say, "I cannot help it, It appears that a concession is to be given under a Tory Government which does not look like lasting long, and so I shall have to place an order quickly to get the concession. As I cannot get an order accepted by a British shipyard, I am forced, notwithstanding my patriotism and my desire to serve my country, to get my ship built abroad." I ask the Economic Secretary to consider this. If the Government come to this House within seven days and say, "We are increasing the deposit for the hire purchase of motor cars, in other words. we shall stop people buying British motor cars, but we are going to give a subsidy to people buying foreign ships", that is fantastic.
We come to another question on this matter, which is important. There is no definition of "ship" in the Bill. If I buy a second-hand foreign ship do I get


the investment allowance on it? If I buy a foreign ship which has been adapted from one kind to another, do I get the investment allowance? I certainly would, had I bought a factory in the days when an investment allowance applied to factory machinery. I would have then got the investment allowance on secondhand machinery as well as on new machinery. I suggest to the Economic Secretary that this is one of the questions to which he ought to be able to give an answer "on the nod". Here we are, giving 40 per cent. taxation relief on the possibility of buying foreign ships, and the possibility of buying foreign ships is very substantial indeed.
Although the American merchant fleet is listed at 28 million tons in the official list, 14 million tons of that, approximately—various figures are given—is represented by the "mothball fleet" in the Great Salt Lakes and elsewhere, which is not being used. So anonymous was this mothball fleet that Her Majesty's Government's advisers had not heard of it at the time. They said we could not possibly go around the Cape because there were not enough oil tankers. It was only when Mr. Foster Dulles called attention to the mothball fleet that we realised there were 14 million tons of perfectly good shipping tucked away in the United States. Surely, the time has come when the Economic Secretary might tell us whether the investment allowance as the Clause is drawn—I submit that as the Clause is drawn it does—would apply to the purchase of a mothball ship from the Great Salt Lakes in America.

Mr. Birch: It would not apply.

Mr. Hale: Why does not it apply? I have had some experience of this matter, although I have not been a shipowner. I say frankly that I accept the proposition of the Economic Secretary, and that if I buy a ship it will be on the instalment system. I have negotiated for other businesses, and I know that if I had bought an existing business, with machinery in, when the investment allowance was in force years ago, I should have got the investment allowance on the second-hand machines. It was not limited to new machines.

Mr. Jay: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. The Clause actually says:

… provision of a ship.
I presume that that includes a secondhand ship.

Mr. Hale: I am always astounded at the rarity of the occasions on which I am wrong. The Economic Secretary ought to consider this proposition, because I do not think the Chancellor intended to give the investment allowance to ships built abroad. The whole tenor of the argument which he put in the Budget speech was that it was an attempt to give genuine help to the British shipbuilding industry. Shipbuilding is important in any island, and in this island it is probably more important than anywhere else in the world. No one resents some concession provided it is reasonably and sensibly given and applied.
The Economic Secretary was tempted to say that there is more or less full employment on the Tyne and the Clyde, and there was no need to restrict our orders to the Clyde; but there has been a definite contraction in the shipbuilding industry compared with its palmy days. There is definite room for expansion. The Clyde is still one of the dominating centres of the industry. That is one of the things which we can say about Scotland with complete generosity and accuracy. No doubt my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will say very much the same sort of thing about the Tyne, but the Clyde is turning out more at the moment" in terms of tonnage and number of ships. The Tyne is building a smaller number of ships than the Clyde.

Mr. Ede: I must not be taken as accepting my hon. Friend's views on this matter. He has been looking at me very menacingly several times and I wondered what he was leading up to. I am not accepting what he said.

Mr. Hale: I do not want to fall out with my right hon. Friend. I recognise the fervour of his local patriotism for South Shields. The Clyde has at the moment some claim to be regarded as the largest and most successfully manned industry in the United Kingdom, but there is room for expansion. We are told that it is only in the last few weeks that, at long last, Japan's shipbuilding industry has caught up with the shipbuilding industry of the United Kingdom in terms of total tonnage. Are we to believe that


the answer of Her Majesty's advisers is that we should apply the subsidy to ships built in Japan? If so, it is a proposal which is utterly indefensible in the circumstances.
There ought to be consideration of how far there should be conditions as to terms of employment in the manufacture of the ships on which the investment allowance is to be given. When I first went across the Atlantic in a banana boat in 1945 I took the trouble to look at the accommodation for the crew. We have made some amendment to the law relating to accommodation for the crews of merchant ships, but if we are to give Government subsidies we ought to lay down conditions as to the terms of employment and conditions of accommodation of the men who work on and man these ships. Conditions in the older ships are utterly deplorable and disgraceful.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I did not intend to speak but, as representing one of the great shipyard constituencies, I must express my support, in part, with what my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) has said. The deplorable thing about the shipyard industry is that we have not reopened the yards that were bought up by Shipbuilding Securities Limited between the two world wars and which were then condemned not to produce a ship for forty-two years. It is astounding that we should pay subsidies to ships produced in foreign shipbuilding yards when we are not using any of the acreage of shipyards that were in existence in this country at the beginning of this century.
We have never managed to get together again the men who were dispersed from the shipyards in those disastrous days. Even during the height of the war, we were unable to reassemble them. I hope that there will be a feeling in this Committee that if subsidies are to be paid on new ships we should make every effort to see that the shipyards of this country which have been closed shall have the opportunity, if the sites are still available, once again to ply this important craft. If we get into any further trouble we shall have the same need for home-produced ships as we have had in both of the two world wars.

Mr. P. Williams: No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will recognise the validity of the point that however much one might wish to expand the production of ships, and however sound his argument might be about reopening the yards which were closed, the key at the moment is steel. While there is a shortage of steel, we could open yards round the whole coast of Britain but could not produce another ship.

Mr. Ede: I am not sure who was speaking about the shortages that were responsible for some of our difficulties, but I then interjected the word "steel". I think that it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), and he at once accepted the point and added it to the point that he was making. I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) does not want to tempt me to get out of order by referring to the way in which the Government have dealt with steel.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I would reinforce the argument presented by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) about giving subsidies to ships built in foreign yards. There is an important ship-repairing industry in my constituency and recently considerable redundancy occurred there because ships were being sent to foreign yards for repair. Presumably, shipbuilding and ship-repairing go together. If we are to pay subsidies out of British taxation to help foreign yards, surely the Government ought to think again. I hope they will.

Mr. Birch: In answer to the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). there is a new Clause on the Notice Paper—(Provision for special capital allowances on certain expenditure incurred in connection with shipbuilding, ship repairing and the provision of port facilities)—which we shall be discussing later. I think that any discussion on what could or might be done about the shipbuilding industry better wait until we reach that new Clause.
The main point raised by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) was the question whether only new ships would receive this allowance. If he will read the governing subsection of Clause 13 of the Bill and Section 16 of the


Finance Act, 1954, he will see that that refers to new plant. This is not a subsidy, but investment allowance and would not have anything to do with subsidies for repairing ships.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14.—(AMENDMENT AS TO CAPITAL ALLOWANCES IN RESPECT OF MACHIN- ERY AND PLANT.)

Commander R. Scott-Miller: I beg to move, in page 11, line 17, after "that", to insert "(i)".

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Norman Hulbert): It might be convenient to discuss this Amendment with the next two Amendments in line 23, after "and", insert "(ii)", and in line 24, after "be", insert "withheld or".

Commander Scott-Miller: I do not pretend that these three Amendments will decide the future of the British Merchant Fleet in any way. Nevertheless, they are of some concern to the shipping industry. They are intended to establish that the retrospective effect of subsection (5) is not intended to apply to a case where a shipowner is denied an investment allowance to which before the Budget he was entitled to claim merely because the claim is not determined in circumstances which might well be beyond his control.
If I deal with the last Amendment first, I may make clearer what I am driving at. I know the Chancellor is anxious to prevent the granting of two investment allowances for the same asset. I suppose that in the case of a ship that could arise on the completion of the building of that ship when it is sold from the owner during its construction to a new shipowner and in that way probably two claims could be made for the same asset.
Subsection (5) and the proviso as they stand, as I see it, would have the effect of depriving a shipowner of his right to an allowance altogether. The word "withdrawn" in the last but one line of the proviso means, I suppose, the taking away of something which is given, but if an investment allowance has not been determined by 9th April, which was Budget day, or in a case where an appeal against determination had not been

lodged by that date, there would be no allowance. Therefore, there is nothing to be withdrawn. The insertion of the words by this Amendment, "withheld or withdrawn" would become necessary. Under the proviso as it stands a shipowner who has sold his ship in the course of construction prior to the Budget but paid building instalments since his last tax computation was agreed would lose the investment allowance to which prior to this Bill he was fully entitled.
I submit that if the Amendment is accepted it would definitely bring into the scope of the Clause cases where investment allowance applies to sales which take place prior to the Budget. The purpose of the first two Amendments is quite a simple matter. It is to break the proviso into two separate parts, the first part being that which leaves unchanged the allowance determined before 9th April, and the second part that which deals with cases in which the transfer itself takes place before that date. I hope my right hon. Friend can see his way to accept these Amendments. Although I have no personal interest in shipping, I know this is a matter which is taken very seriously.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Harry Hylton-Foster): I doubt whether the Committee will continue being kind to me when it knows how boring I have to be about this particular topic in order to explain to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Commander Scott-Miller) why I think it would not be right to accept the Amendment, at all events in the form in which it is and going to the extent to which it goes. I think it would help if I might have the tolerance of the Committee in recalling why this Clause has to be here at all and what is the difficulty we have to get rid of.
It is quite a new discovery. As far as the Revenue knows, no one has ever tried to get this duplicated allowance and, as far as the Revenue knows, no one has ever been given one of these duplicated allowances. It is altogether rather an odd case. It arises from the fact that the statutory provisions providing either for investment allowance or initial allowance never required ownership of the machinery to be a condition of entitlement. So far as I know we have


gone on satisfactorily through our Revenue life without ever noticing this one. It meant all the time that a trader who contracted to pay, and did pay, instalment payments in advance for new plant or machinery was entitled to the initial allowance, or investment allowance as the case may be, athough he never became the owner of the machinery and, although he was wholly reimbursed for his expenditure. That can never have been the intention of Parliament, nor did anyone ever think it was. That, I suggest, is the truth.
8.30 p.m.
The instance which brought it to light, to make the matter plain, is one where there was a relatively peculiar contract for building a ship. It was not one of those contracts where the property in the ship passes to the purchaser as construction goes along. It was a contract by shipping company A with the shipbuilder to build a tanker on terms that the property did not pass until delivery. The shipping company paid instalments. Then, when the tanker was partly built, and, for reasons wholly unassociated with taxation, it wished to get rid of its rights under the contract, and the matter was dealt with by shipping company B taking over the tanker, as it were, the matter being disposed of by the shipbuilder repaying shipping owner A and then making a new contract with shipping owner B for the full price.
That exactly raised the difficulty, because shipping owner B was obviously entitled to the full investment allowance in relation to his expenditure; and when we came to look at the position of shipping owner A, he would say, "Look at my expense as far as the instalments went", and there was no answer to him. In case anybody identifies the companies from what I have been saying, I would point out that the sole concern of shipping Company A in the circumstances was not to get the allowance itself but to make sure that shipping company B would be entitled to it in full.
The loophole has now been revealed, and I do not want to put any wicked thoughts into anybody's head but I want to mention the problem in order to show my hon. and gallant Friend why I cannot accept his Amendment or any Amendment which goes as far as this. If the

two companies were associated and shipping company B reimbursed shipping company A, and did so at an inflated value, then shipping company B would have a good prospect of getting an investment allowance better than the whole expenditure of shipping company B justified. One has to look at the position and to see what is the right remedy.
I wish to emphasise that this Clause makes no change at all in the existing practice. Everybody has operated on the basis, as far as we know, that nobody was entitled to these duplicated allowances, and nobody has ever had one. What is here involved is not the question of denying to some trader an allowance which some other trader has already had. That point does not arise, and that is why we thought that the degree of retrospection in the first part of subsection (5) is clearly right here. It follows precedent where a technical flaw in the law has been discovered which upsets the practice on which everybody has been working all the time. That is why the subsection takes this form.
I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend has thought out what his Amendment would do to its full extent. As the proviso now stands, unamended, where the transfer of rights under the contract took place on or after Budget day, there is no issue between us at all and the correct result, in everybody's view, is obtained. Where the transfer of rights under the contract happened before Budget day and the trader has made his claim and that claim has been determined, then that allowance cannot be disturbed under the Clause, nor can it be disturbed if there has been an appeal in due time before Budget Day against the determination already made in respect of the allowance.
The one case it is necessary to keep out, of course, is the case where no claim has been made, for this reason: possibly nobody was ingenious enough to think of this claim before, but now the position has been much publicised by the Bill, and my hon. and gallant Friend's Amendment would leave it open to a trader who has never previously thought of making a claim to make one now, and perhaps to make one for some future time on the basis of what is now revealed.
It is some future time, because my hon. and gallant Friend will remember that all


these capital allowances are geared to the doctrine of the basis period. They are given at the time of the assessment in relation to the expenditure of the basis period, normally the preceding year. Under the Amendment, if it were incorporated in the Bill, one could claim these allowances, on the inspiration which this Clause has given, for the assessment year 1957–58, the current year, and in the case, I suppose, where the expenditure has occurred very shortly before Budget day, one might get the claim into assessment for 1958–59, opening a very wide door.
I could not advise the Committee to expose the Revenue to the obvious risk which would be involved in adopting an Amendment which would permit that. On the other hand, my hon. and gallant Friend referred to one case which I confess I should like to look at again. That is the case where a claim was made before Budget day— I do not believe the person mentioned exists—but supposing it were so and through business in the Revenue office or the like there had not been determination of that claim. Clearly in logic or, indeed, in kindness to that hypothetical person, I ought to include him. I am not sure that the words as they stand do so, and I should like an opportunity to look at this again.

Mr. D. Marshall: I am not very happy, with that answer, and I should like to tell my right hon. and learned Friend why. As far as I could gather, he said that Clause 14 had been introduced because certain things had been discovered which nobody had really thought of and that the Clause more or less set that right. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Commander Scott-Miller), shares, I think, the view that the principle underlying the Clause is perfectly in order. No one has any objection to it at all.
At the same time, the Amendment tries to put a stop to a certain number of things that would, if they happened, make equity not equity, but inequity. My right hon. and learned Friend has admitted that the introduction of Clause 14 has become necessary because certain things were not thought of, so it is more than likely that the things coming under the Amendment may not yet have been thought of at the Treasury. I would,

therefore, have expected the Solicitor-General to have suggested that this matter would have deeper consideration.
Apart from that, I am the more in agreement with my hon. and gallant Friend because of something which the Solicitor-General has said. He said that it might well be that in certain circumstances people could have been entitled to a certain amount of relief for which they had not claimed, but because of the spotlight put on it by Clause 14 they might realise that, and the Treasury might then have lost some money which, in fact, it should have lost before. If I understand that aright, I do not like it at all.
It may well be that I have misunderstood my right hon. and learned Friend, but if his major point is that there were certain forms of relief to which people or companies were entitled but which they had not discovered and that by the focussing of attention upon this Clause they might well discover, and that therefore, they must be stopped, I do not consider that that is the type of approach that hon. Members would like to see; in other words, that the Treasury should "get away with it".

Sir L. Ropner: I should like to repeat that I am wholly behind the intention of Clause 14, but it has been alleged by those who, at any rate, profess to be tax experts that the Clause stops people doing what they might legitimately be allowed to do. I confess to my right hon. and learned Friend that I found it very hard to understand the brief with which I was provided in order to speak on the Clause, but I must also confess that I found it equally hard to understand his reply.
What I should like from the Solicitor-General is an assurance that the fears which are quite obviously genuinely held by the legal and taxation experts of the shipping community are not justified but that, if they are justified, he will repeat his assurance to look at the Clause before the Report stage.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: The debate on this Amendment throws a very interesting light on the point of view of the shipping community. I gather that the shipping community, or somebody representing it, must have provided briefs to the three hon. Members opposite who have just been addressing us.

Sir L. Ropner: Why not?

Mr. Mitchison: Perhaps only one; perhaps the others thought of it on their own. But one of them, at any rate, said that all this had the support of the shipping community. In a way, it is not very pleasant to get up and support the Government, as I am about to do, but let me just point out how the matter strikes me.

Sir L. Ropner: I should like the hon. and learned Gentleman to enlarge on his objection to representatives of a large and important industry advising Members of this Committee. Has he never been advised by any industry or any section of any industry? I am bound to say that his speeches sometimes make us think that he has not.

Mr. Mitchison: I am all for it being done. We on this side of the Committee have not that insight into the minds of shipping magnates that some hon. Gentlemen opposite have, and any stray light that can be thrown on their intentions or their morals gives us great pleasure and, may I add, some edification. The hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner) should not complain that we show interest in these things. We are profoundly interested in the views of this great industry, as instanced in this Amendment.
Parliament passed an Act, with the intention that an investment allowance should be given in certain cases. One of them now is the provision of a new ship. Parliament obviously intended that one person, and one person only, should get a single investment allowance in respect of a single ship. No one, I imagine, disputes that proposition. I gather that the industry, into whose mind I am so interested to inquire, accepts that general proposition.
It is now told that it was possible to get more than one investment allowance in respect of a single ship, and it is further told that no one tumbled to this and that, so far as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General can tell us, no one has, in fact, succeeded in getting more than one investment allowance out of a single ship. So much the better. In this remarkable instance, the Government, having themselves discovered the loophole, are stopping it before anybody gets through.
In the light of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has told us, we now have hon. Members getting up and saying that, while nobody knows of such a thing having happened, they wish none the less to be assured that, in the words of what is proposed,
 the allowance shall not be withheld or withdrawn by virtue of this Section by reason of any event occurring before the 
Budget. That is what the Amendment proposes.
It is perfectly obvious that, if anybody had to any extent tumbled to the device, and if anybody, indeed, had taken action which might now enable him to avail himself of the device, he would be protected by this Amendment. I entirely and respectfully agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he says that that is far too wide.
After all, it is a tolerably simple sentence. I can quite understand hon. Gentlemen saying beforehand that something or other might or ought to be done about this, but to get up after that explanation and say that, none the less, there ought to be this wide concession— I will not call it protection—made in a case of that kind, seems to me to throw a rather curious light on their own state of mind and makes me particularly interested to know the contents of the brief which this great and important industry, or some part or association of it, or something or other to do with it, furnished to at least one of the hon. Gentlemen who have addressed us.
8.45 p.m.
Therefore, I regard the Clause as a good Clause. I am not quite certain that I entirely agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman in saying that, having told us that no one has taken advantage of the Clause, he now proposes to try to find someone who may have taken advantage of it, for that is what I understood he said. With that small and probably meaningless exception, since, apparently, nobody has done it, I cannot see anything to quarrel at in the Clause, but I can find a lot to quarrel with in the very wide words of the Amendments.

Sir L. Ropner: The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has complained about a curious state of mind. The Committee can judge who is suffering from a curious state of mind


here this evening. I thought it had been made perfectly clear from these benches that the shipping industry is wholly behind the intention of the Clause. What we think the Government are doing is something which they do not intend to do. If the hon. and learned Member really wants to see the information and advice which I have received from the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom, he is quite at liberty to see it if he can bother to ask me for it after the debate, which I very much doubt.

The Solicitor-General: I am obliged to my hon. Friends for putting down their Amendment, because it revealed to me that I have missed a case which, in logic, I should have included in my proviso. I do not believe that that case exists, but it would be unfair not to include it. That is why I am grateful to my hon. Friends. The particular case is one in which a claim had been made before Budget day, and which, therefore, was in no sense inspired by the Clause, and which, owing to business in the Revenue office or the like, had not been determined before Budget day. I am grateful to my hon. Friends for drawing my attention to it.
For the rest, the anxiety of my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. D. Marshall) is entirely my fault. I failed to make plain to him that all that the Clause is doing, in our belief and view, is continuing the practice on which the whole community has been operating all the time, and never doing anything else. If any hon. Member, in any part of the Committee, knows of any case in which somebody has had or has claimed a duplicated allowance, if this mythical being really exists, I can only say that I will be grateful if, before the Report stage, I can be furnished with particulars of it.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15.—(PERSONS CHARGEABLE UNDER SCHEDULE A FOR BUILDINGS LET IN PARTS.)

Sir Patrick Spens: I beg to move, in page 11, line 45, at the end to add:
Provided also that this section shall not apply to leases entered into before the ninth day of April, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven

The Clause was introduced in a very short reference on Second Reading by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, but I should like to take up a little time in going at rather greater length into the problem with which the Clause deals. It deals with cases where landlords have let flats for a considerable premium of cash down.
Up to the year 1954, it had always been assumed that for Schedule A purposes those flats came within the scope of Section 109 of the Income Tax Act, 1952, and that the landlord was liable for Schedule A tax in respect of
 any house or building let in different apartments or tenements and occupied by two or more persons severally.
No one had ever doubted that that was in fact the practice and the liability, but there also existed in the same Income Tax Act, a few Sections further on, a provision that the tenant should be charged where a house was divided into distinct properties and occupied by distinct owners or their respective tenants.
In 1954, the Revenue, for reasons which I do not know but at which I think I can guess, decided that it would be more convenient in future to assess the occupiers of flats who had paid large premiums for a long-term in the flats rather than to assess the landlord. Accordingly, without any legislation, and having regard to the fact that two comparatively conflicting provisions existed in the 1952 Act, they made an announcement that in future their practice would be to assess the tenant and not the landlord.
In 1955, came the Royal Commission, which considered the circumstances and what had happened. It took the view that the attitude which the Inland Revenue authorities had announced in 1954 they were going to take in future was probably the right one, and that in future tenants and not landlords should be assessed for Schedule A, but added certain words at the end of paragraph 915 of the Report on the possibility of amending legislation to that effect being introduced. The Royal Commission obviously thought that it was highly desirable that there should be legislation, as, indeed, I think there ought to have been in 1954. After mentioning the possibility of legislation, the Report went on to say
 But in that event, as past bargains may have been arrived at on the basis of the


existing law the treatment of a lessee as an 'owner' within Section 113 should apply only to cases where the lease was entered into after the commencement of the amending legislation.
My Amendment would add that proviso. Meanwhile, other things have happened. A test case has been fought and has been taken right up to the House of Lords, and early this year the House of Lords decided that the old practice that the landlord was liable was the right one. Accordingly, we have the situation that, since 1954, tenants have been assessed under Section 113, and the House of Lords in 1957 has decided that the practice introduced by the inland Revenue in 1954 was wrong.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: May I interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman on a point of correction? The decision to which he has referred was, I think, a decision of the Court of Appeal, and not of the House of Lords, in the case of Gatehouse v.Vise.

Sir P. Spens: I beg the Committee's pardon; it was the Court of Appeal, and I am obliged to the hon. Member. The result is that it is quite impossible now to settle the law one way or the other without doing a deal of injustice to bargains which have already been entered into. I frankly do not know which is likely to be the best way of dealing with the matter.
There is not the slightest doubt that the landlords are the people who ought to have borne Schedule A tax, according to the Court of Appeal. In fact, since 1954, owing to the attitude of the Inland Revenue, which it announced and advertised quite widely and about which I think a Question was asked and answered in the House of Commons, but without any legislative change in the law, the tenants have been assessed for this tax.
This very gravely affects a great number of cases in my constituency. This habit of paying a large sum down for a long lease in a house has grown among all classes. Not only do landlords like it, because it gives them something that is a capital sum, but people of quite small means who are about to retire take out endowment policies with the sole object of being able to pay a sum down for a long lease of a flat in a house in order

to provide for themselves or for their widows. It is extremely attractive for people of small means to pay a substantial sum down and know that the rent will he a very small amount which their widows will be able to pay.
That these tenants should now have to pay in addition full Schedule A tax in respect of these bargains is a very serious matter indeed. Injustice is bound to be done in respect of past bargains owing to the muddle that has been created by the fact that the Inland Revenue, without legislative authority, introduced this practice. It is one of those unfortunate accidents that happen. I do not know how best to deal with it, but my instinct as a good Conservative is that a change in the law should not apply except to bargains entered into after the date of the Finance Bill. No one can possibly assess who will have been injured by the change of law. I think that the right way to tackle the matter is to accept the Royal Commission's recommendation and add the proviso to the Clause, and I move accordingly.

The Solicitor-General: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) for putting this Amendment on the Order Paper and giving us an opportunity to discuss what I think is an extraordinarily difficult problem of legislation. I accept what my right hon. and learned Friend has said. Whatever we do about it we are hound to do injustice to somebody. There is no way of solving it otherwise. With that in mind, we have sought to do the least amount of injustice possible, consistent with getting the law right.
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for explaining so much of how this has arisen, because it lets me off the tedium of doing it to the Committee, but I am bound to emphasise the injustice that it is sought to remedy. This is Income Tax—a tax on the annual taxable benefit. It works quite well in the case of a house, even when the tenant is paying a nominal rent because he has paid a premium. If he is paying a rack rent he can deduct the tax that he is charged as the occupier from the rent, up to the full amount of tax on his rent. If he is paying only a nominal rent, he cannot deduct the tax which he pays because the amount of his rent is not


enough. In between are all the cases between the nominal rent and the full rack rent. So that effectively the tax on the enjoyment of the annual taxable benefit is shared out, rightly, in proportion between lessor and tenant according to the amount of their respective enjoyment of the annual taxable benefit.
9.0 p.m.
That works perfectly well for a house. The only reason it does not work for flats, and annoyingly so, is because of the old rule, now in Section 109 (1, c) of the consolidating Act. It is a rule which belongs to an age when it was not the public habit to live in flats. It relates to tenements and lodgings and such things, but it is imperative in its effect. When Section 109 (1, c) says that in circumstances where parts of the building are let out in the way that my right hon. and learned Friend was saying—in the case of a house or building let in different apartments or tenements —the landlord is the person who must be assessed. That is imperative in form and that is what makes the difficulty primarily here.
Obviously one would have desired to follow the recommendation of the Royal Commission in excepting all bargains entered into before this legislation, unless one had found very sound reasons for thinking that that would produce the wrong result. The difficulty has been that the landlord, the lessor, where there has been a letting at a nominal rent for a premium, had cogent arguments about the injustice which applying Section 109 (1, c) worked for him.
He could say, "I have used up all the premiums in paying for the very building in which you are living", or he could say, "Well, but this tenant has virtually acquired by his lease over perhaps a long-term of ninety-nine years, the whole of the taxable annual benefit for a long time to come." Or he might say, "I am not the original lessor, I am someone who has acquired a reversion from him, and I just have not got the funds to meet the Schedule A tax on the whole of the annual benefit when I am getting only £1 a year out of each flat, or some nominal rent." It was in those circumstances that the Revenue was apparently advised that the matter might be covered by the other Section to which my right hon. and

learned Friend referred, Section 113, which I think is a hangover from the old Inhabitated House Duty and ought not to have anything to do with Income Tax at all, but that is a speculation.
We have sought to see how best to overcome by legislation the difficulty which arises by reason of the fact that we ought not to leave the person who is not in possession of the annual taxable benefit paying the tax on it. To adopt the recommendation of the Royal Commission, and to leave out all bargains before the legislation, seemed to us to do exactly the wrong thing, because it perpetuated the anomaly that we desire to get rid of for the full length of the existing term, which might be another ninety-nine years, and it would have to operate even in cases where the intention of the parties, at all times when they entered into their bargain, was that it was the tenant who should bear the Schedule A tax. That is because of the imperative character of Section 109 (1, c>). It works an even greater injustice against the lessor than the lessee because the tenant here is the person who will get the repair allowance—the landlord will not get them.
Then there is another difficulty. It would mean having two general rules running side by side over the whole period of the longest lease with which one is dealing. That is clearly a matter of grave public inconvenience Then, when we came to study the cases, it seemed to be a very improbable case where the landlord, parting, in effect, with the annual taxable benefit for a long time, would have intended to pay Schedule A tax all that time and to receive only a nominal rent for it. As one legal publication put it, any tenant who expected him to do so would be a very optimistic tenant. On the face of it it is an improbable case. Then there is one other test. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, it was the practice before 1954 to assess the landlord in these cases, and after the announcement of the Revenue change of practice on the advice it then had publicly announced, the practice was changed to assessing the tenant. One would have thought that if that was not believed to be in accordance with justice, and what people intended, there would have been a great many protests, but since it has assessed the tenants in these cases,


since the change of practice in 1954, there have been, so far as the Revenue knows, very few cases indeed—I cannot descend to the actual figures with precision, but only a very few cases—where any protest or complaint was made at all.
So it looked to us as though in the vast majority of cases of this kind dealing with a long term acquired for a premium at a nominal rent, it was, as one would expect, the intention of the parties that the tenant should be chargeable. That means that legislation of this pattern is producing the right result except for one case. That is the case where the bargain between the parties was made on the basis that it was the lessor who would be chargeable.
Obviously, if one could find a way of doing it, it would be highly desirable to find a let-out for that case. We have reluctantly come to the conclusion—and I welcome the assistance of the Committee about it—that it is not possible to devise a let-out which will work in practice. The prudent conveyancer obviously would provide for this matter in the terms of the lease, so we are concerned only with the case where the lease is silent, and if we give the tenant an opportunity of escaping, if he can show that such was the bargain between the parties, how is he to satisfy the Commissioners that that was the bargain?
The subject matter of the inquiry is entirely subjective. It is what was in the minds of the two people who perhaps never made any express reference to the matter at all? The evidence, if it is available, may be very old. The bargain may have been made some time ago. Usually it would not be the original parties to the bargain now. The reversion may have been assigned and the lease assigned and the original parties may have died. So there is even that difficulty. Further, what kind of evidence would it be? It would not be such that any court of law could admit because it would he oral evidence to add to a written bargain embodied in the lease, and I do not suppose that the Committee would think it right to allow the Commissioners to hear evidence about a bargain between the parities which a judge in a court of law would not think of admitting.
We looked at one other idea. It might have been an indication perhaps if we found a case where a landlord had been

assessed and had submitted to the assessment and paid without demur. But that will not do, because first of all, in this case we are looking for, the assessment might have been made on the tenant, and there is the further difficulty that the appeal might relate not to the person who is properly chargeable but to the amount. So we could not get an indication even on that. We came reluctantly to the conclusion that it was not possible to pick out this case, the one case of which we want to make exception, without making the law work the wrong way, and that any attempt to do so would simply produce more anomalies and injustices.

Mr. Mitchison: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman enlighten the Committee on one point? I understand that at one stage of the proceedings the Board changed its practice. Did it apply that change to existing assessments and cases that had already been dealt with under the previous practice?

The Solicitor-General: Yes, it applied them to every case which could be brought within the terms of Section 113 —every case where the house, in the Board's then view, could be said to be divided into distinct properties occupied by distinct owners, irrespective of the date when the lease had been entered into. It was a firm change of practice and we have the indication that it did not produce any form of protest from the tenant except in a few exceptional cases.
Having explained our difficulties, I want to emphasise what the Clause does not do. It is in no sense retrospective. It in no way affects liability to tax for past years. It is merely an attempt to get the matter right for the future, and the open assessments on tenants will just have to be discharged. That is all that will happen.
I wish also to make the point—because it affected our minds—that if the bargain between the parties was that the lessor should pay the Schedule A there is nothing whatever in the Clause to prevent him from fulfilling his bargain or being compelled to do so. This is merely an attempt to get right the law which should cause the assessment to fall where the annual benefit is.

Sir P. Spans: I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to develop that point. As I understand it, where there


is an express bargain in the lease that the landlord is to pay Schedule A, none the less the tenant will still be assessed in the first instance. My right hon. and learned Friend says that the tenant will then be able to get the money out of his landlord. Where there is an express provision in a lease surely Parliament ought not to go to the length of nullifying that and casting a burden upon the other person.

The Solicitor-General: It does not alter the ultimate burden at all. It does not alter the question who ultimately has to pay. The difficulty is that a person may not be able to show, in some case where it is a fact, that the bargain between the parties was that the lessor should pay. No difficulty arises where there is an express provision in the lease. The parties have then dealt with the matter and there is nothing here that would alter that fact in terms of ultimate liability.
That is why we have not followed the recommendation of the Royal Commission. I hope that, appreciating how extremely difficult the matter is from a legislative point of view, the Committee will think that in the circumstances, this is the best provision that it is possible to make in an abominably difficult problem.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: I rise to support the Amendment. With great respect to the Solicitor-General, I submit that the matter is very much simpler than he would have us believe. If we look, first, at the realities of the matter we see that what led to the change of policy by the Inland Revenue in 1954 was the fact that it found that there were a great many cases where properties of this kind were held under long leases and where the burden for Schedule A fell—as it had done ever since the lease began—upon the landlord, but the landlord had now become a man of straw, or possibly a company resident in Eire, whom the Revenue could not reach.
It was because the Revenue could not get its money that it decided, rather boldly, to change its interpretation of the law and say, "We have been making a mistake all this time"—and all this time

means since 1842—" and, really, all this time we should have been levying it on the tenant." It is a bit suspicious that they should suddenly form that interpretation of the law at a time when owing to modern conditions they find themselves in many cases unable to levy the tax on the landlords.
The only principle underlying this is the principle succinctly stated by Mr. Justice Danckwerts in this present case when it was tried in the first instance, and when he said:
 The rules which I have to construe are found in the group called 'Rules as to persons chargeable.' and I think that the only clearly discernable principle may be that of enabling the tax to be charged on the largest number of persons with the least exertion on the part of the officials entrusted with the duty of collecting the tax.
That is the principle, the only principle, which led to this change of practice. But this change of practice, as Mr. Justice Danckwerts and the Court of Appeal decided, was a completely wrong and erroneous change of practice on the part of the Revenue. The correct position in law is the position which prevailed in practice from 1842 until 1954.
The Solicitor-General says, disarmingly, that the only cases where injustice would result if this Amendment were not accepted would be cases where the bargain was made on the basis that the lessor would be chargeable. All the bargains made from 1842 until 1954 were made on the basis that the lessor would be chargeable and this was never questioned; it was not challenged before. The Solicitor-General referred in particular to the position in the 99-year leases, a matter which concerns many people today, because these leases are beginning to fall in. Most of them were made in the years following about 1850.
This rule, which the Court of Appeal decided was right to put the burden on landlords, was formulated in the Income Tax Act of 1842. It was quite a recent piece of legislation at the time when these 99-year leases were made. It was never challenged; there was no test case in the courts about it. The Revenue interpreted it perfectly naturally, as did both the parties to the contract, the lessee and the lessor. The position was that the lessor got a lump sum and also his ground rent, and he was liable to pay the landlord's property tax, the Schedule A. It


is only now, because the Revenue finds itself in a position that in many cases it is unable to levy it on the landlord, that it wants to shift the burden to the tenant.
It is quite right, in one sense, to say that it is anomalous. What we are here dealing with is the case of a single property divided up into, say, four or more flats or apartments, whereas if we sad, say, a terrace of four or five houses in a similar position, the burden would fall on the tenant, although the terms of the leases may be identical. So it is right to say that to obtain consistency in the general application of the law relating to Schedule A, one should bring this class of property into line with others, and say that in the future, the burden shall fall on the tenant.
But to say that the burden shall fall on the tenant in future and make that apply to all the contracts made and all the leases in existence at the time when the law was changed, means that the burden is being transferred, quite arbitrarily, from the landlord to the tenant in cases where a bargain was made on the basis that the landlord would have to bear the burden. I should have thought that the anxiety of this Government to make uncovenanted gifts to landlords had been satiated by the Rent Bill.—[Laughter.] Government supporters laugh. Let me tell them of the case concerning a leasehold house which came to my attention only a few weeks ago.
The leaseholder under a 99-year lease having about seven years to go, approached his landlord, a property company, about eighteen months ago, and said, "May I purchase from you the reversion of the freehold?" "Certainly," said the company. "It will cost you £770."The tenant said," That is rather a lot of money. It will take a little time to raise it ", and so he went away. A short time ago he came back and said, "I have raised the £770. Now will you please convey the freehold to me?" "Ah," said the property company, "you know there has been a Rent Bill since then. The price now is £2,005.". That was the uncovenanted gift by the Rent Bill to the landlord in that case.
The effect of the Clause, if the Amendment is not accepted, will be that the capital value of the reversion on these long leases will appreciate very consider-

ably. The Solicitor-General referred, with tears falling from his eyes, to the possibility of properties changing hands. So be it. The price was fixed on the basis that the landlords were to be liable for this tax. If that burden is now to be shifted to the tenant the value of the reversion will be enormously enhanced, because the landlord has been relieved of the burden. That will be a tax-free capital gain to the landlord, quite apart from its being an additional burden to the tenant who may have acquired the remainder of the term of the tenancy on the basis of the landlord being liable to pay the tax. He now finds that he has a very much bigger burden. The whole weight of injustice will fall upon the tenant. The only cases where it will be the other way round will be those of the short interregnum period between 1954 and the decision of the Court of Apepal. But for that the whole weight is one way.
Then the Solicitor-General referred to the contractual position between the parties, and suggested that the Clause only affected the power of the Revenue to levy the tax. He suggested that the burden as between the parties would remain governed by the contract. Again. that is not so. The usual form of words very seldom provides that the contract will provide any indemnity. The usual form of words is that in the case of Gatehouse v. Vise. I will find it.

The Solicitor-General: While the hon. Gentleman is looking, would he be good enough to read out all the covenants in that case? He would agree that they were obviously copies out of a precedent book by somebody who did not bother to see whether they would mutually fit.

Mr. MacDermot: Yes, indeed. They were copied out of a precedent book. The references in that case were as follows:
The lessees' covenants included covenants to pay the rent without any deduction 'except for landlords property tax'.
That was done on the assumption that the tenant is going to pay the tax and then would be able to make a deduction from the rent. It goes on:
To pay rates and taxes as therein mentioned '(landlords property tax only excepted)'.
That contains the assumption that the landlord will pay the tax. That is a case


where, as the Solicitor-General suggested, contradictory covenants were compiled out of a precedent book, but a great many leases were entered into on the basis of the second of these references, namely, that the tenant will pay the rates and taxes but not the landlord's property tax. The contract was quite clearly entered into on the basis that the landlord would pay the tax.
In all those circumstances, I submit that in the overwhelming majority of cases of this kind the contract has been entered into on the basis that the burden would be on the landlord and very great injustice will be done if it is now suddenly and arbitrarily transferred.

Mr. H. Wilson: Surely, after that masterly and devastating statement, we must expect a reply from the Solicitor-General. While it is certainly fair to say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman put a very plausible case, I think that he himself, in all fairness, will be the first to admit that it has been utterly demolished by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham. North (Mr. MacDermot).

The Solicitor-General: I will not accept that, even from the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). I do not suggest that our solution is satisfactory. I did not put it as high as that. I suggest it is the least unsatisfactory one which anyone can find. I should like to join in the compliments paid by the Committee to the speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot), which I very much enjoyed. I was not intending not to reply to him, but I thought someone else was going to speak. Hence my unduly static or sedentary position of apparent somnolence.
If I may start from the last point the hon. Member made, the difficulty I do not think arises from the case where the parties have written out their bargain about the tax. It does not matter whom one assesses then because the ultimate liability is going in the right place. It does not make any difference as they are going to be able to sort it out between themselves according to their written bargain. The case we have to deal with is the case where the lease is silent and particularly, as in the case of Gatehouse v. Vise, where one could not get sense out of the covenants.
What is here being done does not affect the liability at all in the case where there is a written bargain which the parties can enforce as to who ultimately is to bear the burden of the tax. Of course, I agree with the hon. Member that in the ordinary way one starts with the presumption that bargains are made looking to the law as it is, even though no one knows what it is until it is subsequently declared by the Court of Appeal to be so-and-so. That would be the right presumption. It does not work here as far as we can make out because the law in this field was so uncertain—everyone would agree that it was uncertain—that we could not be confident that the parties were advised that the incidence, apart from an expressed bargain, would be in the form in which the Court of Appeal ultimately decided it should be. That would not help us to get what we thought would be the right answer here.
As to his point about the improvement of value on reversion of this assessment, once again that is confined to a case where the parties have not themselves laid down a bargain about the ultimate incidence of tax. That is a sound point if one assumes that a nominal rent only is not the badge of an intention that the ultimate burden of the tax should be borne by the tenant, but that seemed to us on the examination of cases and facts to be the ordinary to-be-presumed-to-exist case. I hope the hon. Member and the Committee will follow me. That is entirely consistent with exactly what the Court of Appeal, or two members of it, said should be in logic the incidence of this taxation, and entirely consistent with what the Royal Commission recommended should be for the future the proper incidence of taxation in relation to this annual taxable benefit.

Mr. MacDermot: The Solicitor-General is not suggesting that the Court of Appeal suggested it should be made retrospective in these cases?

9.30 p.m.

The Solicitor-General: I am not suggesting that at all. I am merely suggesting that apparently I have the support of two members of the Court of Appeal in regarding the incidence of tax the other way as being anomalous in the tax system. I put it no higher than that,


and that is exactly what the Royal Commission said, and that is what we are trying to put right in the Clause.
The hon. Member was anxious lest the inspiration of the Revenue in this matter was merely that it had found itself unable to recover tax. I do not dare to venture into the innermost recesses of the Revenue's soul. I do not know at all. What I have observed and believe to be true, however, is that it is infinitely more convenient to the Revenue in these cases to assess from one person than a whole lot of tenants, and that is what it likes to do if it can because it is administratively more convenient.

Mr. Mitchison: Not if he is in Ireland.

The Solicitor-General: He has a building here, exhypothesi,because it is in that building that all these flats are contained; and we ought to be able to get tax out of him, whether he is in Ireland, Timbuctoo. or even another place.
I hope that, with that explanation, I have satisfied the Committee that although I do not suggest, and never have suggested, that this is a satisfactory answer, whichever way we set about it we get into worse trouble. No one can think it right to perpetuate for the totality of existing terms the anomaly which the Royal Commission thinks we ought to remedy.

Mr. H. Wilson: The lawyers have had their go, and I think the Committee is grateful for the very clear exposition of both points of view which have been put forward. [Laughter.] Well, to be fair, the Solicitor-General has put a strong argument for the point of view which he has been told to argue. He has done it extraordinarily clearly. We all have sympathy with him, because he is almost alone against all these eminent legal authorities.

Having heard the lawyers, I think the Committee, being composed principally of laymen, will have to decide on what it has heard tonight; and as one layman, certainly with no pretensions to being a lawyer, I must say that despite the great effort put up by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I feel that the arguments adduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot), by Lord Radcliffe and by all the legal luminaries of the Royal Commission must be judged to have won the day. On that basis the Committee should make up its mind.

Mr. Arbuthnot: It ill behoves another layman to say a word in this paradise for lawyers, but, having listened to the arguments from both sides, I cannot help feeling that we should be mistaken to take a definite decision tonight. I appeal to my right hon. and learned Friend to say that he will have a look at the problems again.
I think we all recognise that there are hardships, on whichever side of the fence one comes down. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend will be the last person to wish to come down on one side of the fence or the other without having given very serious thought to the points of view which have been put forward. I hope he will say that he will look at this again to see whether it is possible to take into account the arguments which have been put forward in the sense opposite to that in which he expressed himself. We all realise the difficulties, because we are in the same difficulties ourselves, but I hope he will be able to agree to consider the matter again.

Question put,That those words be there added:—

The Committee divided:Ayes 144, Noes 192

Division No. 130.]
AYES
[9.35 p.m.


Ainsley, J. W.
Braddock, Mrs, Elizabeth
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)


Albu, A. H.
Brockway, A. F.
Deer, G.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Dodds, N. N.


Allen, Schotefield (Crewe)
Burke, W. A.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)


Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Champion, A. J.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Bonn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)
Chetwynd, G. R.
Edelman, M.


Benson, G.
Clunie, J.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)


Beswick, Frank
Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)


Blyton, W. R.
Collins, V. J. (Shoreditch &amp; Finsbury)
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)


Boardman, H.
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Cove, W. G.
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)


Boyd, T. C.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Finch, H. J.




Fletcher, Eric
Lawson, G. M.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Ledger, R. J.
Randall, H. E.


George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Car'then)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Rankin, John


Gibson, C. W.
Lindgren, G. S.
Redhead, E. C.


Cordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Logan, D. G.
Rhodes, H.


Grey, C. F.
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Griffiths, David (Bother Valley)
MacColl, J. E.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
MacDermot, Niall
Ross, William


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
McInnes, J.
Royle, C.


Hale, Leslie
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Hamilton, W. W.
Mahon, Simon
Steele, T.


Hannan, W.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfd, E.)
Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R. (Ipswich)


Hastings, S.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Stonehouse, John


Hayman, F. H.
Mason, Roy
Stones, W. (Consett)


Herbison, Miss M.
Mltchison, G. R.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Monslow, W.
Stross, Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)


Holmes, Horace
Moody, A. S.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Houghton, Douglas
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Sylvester, G. O.


Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Mort, D. L.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Hubbard, T. F.
Moyle, A.
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Mulley, F. W.
Thornton, E.


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Viant, S. P.


Hunter, A. E.
Oliver, G. H.
Weitzman, D.


Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Orbach, M.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Paget, R. T.
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Palmer, A. M. F.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Wilkins, W. A.


Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Pargiter, G. A.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Jeger, George (Goole)
Parker, J.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Parkin, B. T.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Johnson, James (Rugby)
Paton, John
Woof, R. E.


Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Pentland, N.
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Kenyon, C.
Plummer, Sir Leslie



Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


King, Dr. H. M.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Simmons.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.


Altken, W. T.
Cunningham, Knox
Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Currie, G. B. H,
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Davidson, Viscountess
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)


Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Arbuthnot, John
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Hirst, Geoffrey


Armstrong, C. W.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hobson, John(Warwick &amp; Leam'gt'n)


Ashton, H.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hope, Lord John


Atkins, H. E.
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hornby, R. P.


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
du Cann, E. D. L.
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.


Baldwin, A. E.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Horobin, Sir Ian


Barber, Anthony
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence


Barlow, Sir John
Elliott,R.W.(N'castle upon Tyne,N)
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)


Barter, John
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Howard, John (Test)


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Hughes-Young, M. H. C.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Finlay, Graeme
Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry


Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Fisher, Nigel
Iremonger, T. L.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Fort, R.
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Black, C. W.
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)


Body, R. F.
Freeth, Denzil
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Boothby, Sir Robert
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Joseph, Sir Keith


Bossom, Sir Alfred
Gibson-Watt, D.
Keegan, D.


Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)
Glover, D.
Kerby, Capt. H. B.


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Godber, J. B.
Kershaw, J. A.


Braine, B. R.
Gomme-Duncan, Col. Sir Alan
Kirk, P. M.


Brooman-Whlte, R. C.
Goodhart, Philip
Lagden, G. W.


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Cough, C. F. H.
Lambert, Hon. G.


Bryan, P.
Graham, Sir Fergus
Leather, E. H. C.


Burden, F. F. A.
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Leavey, J. A.


Butler) Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron walden)
Green, A.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Cart, Robert
Gresham Cooke, R.
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)


Channon, Sir Henry
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Linstead, Sir H. N.


Chichester-Clark, R.
Gurden, Harold
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)


Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Cooke, Robert C.
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
McAdden, S. J.


Cooper, A. E.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Mckibbin, A. J.


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)


Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)


Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Hesketh, R. F.
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfleld, W.)







Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Partridge, E.
Stevens, Geoffrey


Maddan, Martin
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Storey, S.


Maltland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Summers, Sir Spencer


Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Marlowe, A. A. H.
Pott, H. P.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Marshall, Douglas
Powell, J. Enoch
Teeling, W.


Mathew, R.
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Temple, John M.


Maude, Angus
Price, Henry (Lewlsham, W.)
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Mawby, R. L.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Thornton-Kemsley C. N.


Medlicott, Sir Frank
Ramsden, J. E.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Ridsdale, J. E.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Rippon, A. G. F.
Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.


Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Robson-Brown, W.
Wall, Major Patrick


Nabarro, G. D. N.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Nairn, D. L. S.
Roper, Sir Harold
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Neave, Airey
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp;Chr'ch)
Russell, R. S.
Webbe, Sir H.


Noble, Comdr. Rt. Hon. Allan
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Oakshott, H. D.
Sharpies, R. C.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Shepherd, William
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)



Page, R. G.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Panned, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Spearman, Sir Alexander
Mr. Wills and Mr. Legh.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16.—(TAX IN RESPECT OF LAND IN SCOTLAND OR NORTHERN IRELAND.)

Mr. Hector Hughes: I beg to move, in page 12, line 2, to leave out from "1957–58" to "that" in line 4.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think it would he convenient for the Committee to discuss this Amendment together with the following two Amendments, in page 12, line 3.

Mr. Hughes: If you please, Sir Gordon; I think that that would be the convenient course.
My two Amendments are alternative. They both seek to limit the operation of Clause 16 in point of time. The first would limit it to the year of assessment 1957–58 and the second would limit it to the period ending with the year of assessment 1961–62. Both agree in limiting the time in accordance with the earlier law to which I shall refer. The arguments for both are similar.
9.45 p.m.
The objects of my Amendments are threefold: first to co-ordinate the Clause with Section 16 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, on which the Clause depends. The second object is to make the Clause limited in point of time, as the relevant Section in the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, is limited in point of time. The third object is to remove from the Clause the words which tend to make it, in effect, practically unlimited in point of time unless Parliament in future takes some substantive step to limit it in point of time.
We seek to leave out the objectionable words which would make the Clause operate not only for the year 1957–58, but also for
 every subsequent year of assessment until Parliament otherwise determines.
Either of these Amendments, if carried, would leave intact the opening words of the Clause:
 In relation to lands and heritages in Scotland, the following provisions shall have effect for the year 1957–58 …
Then follow the provisions in a series of sub-paragraphs, with which I need not trouble the Committee.
That limitation in point of time to the year 1957–58 follows exactly the limitation in point of time in Section 16 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, on which the Clause is based. It is manifest to hon. Members that the conflict between the Clause and Section 16 of the Act is something which Parliament should not tolerate.
The Clause as it stands is, therefore, wrong. It exceeds the Act of 1956, on which the Clause is based, and the Amendment is designed to remedy this defect. The wrongness and the need for the Amendment are evident if we look at the words which the Clause seeks to leave out. I have already quoted the initial words of the Clause which we seek to leave in. I quote now the later words of the Clause which we seek to leave out:
 and every subsequent year of assessment until Parliament otherwise determines.
There are several objections to these words, but I shall trouble the Committee with only seven of them. First, they make the Clause unlimited in point of


time, which is impractical and wrong in itself. Secondly, as I have said, they conflict with Section 16 of the 1956 Act, which contains the limitation as to time to the year 1957–58. Thirdly, they are an unreasonable interference with recent legislation, as I shall show. Fourthly, they tend to make the administration of the Bill when it becomes an Act difficult. Fifthly, they introduce uncertainty in practice from year to year, which is an important matter from the taxpayer's point of view. Sixthly, they are unnecessary because Parliament has the right anyway to determine otherwise by subsequent legislation. Seventhly, these words do not carry out effectively the purpose for which they are apparently designed.
The words which I propose to leave out seek to link up the provisions of Clause 16 of this Bill with Section 16 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, but the attempt is manifestly incomplete. It is an extension and distortion of the provisions of the earlier Act, and is unjust, improper and wrong.
For these reasons, and for others which I will not trouble the Committee at the moment, I submit that the words—
 and every subsequent year of assessment until Parliament otherwise determines 
should be left out. To make clear my argument, it is necessary to appreciate the way in which Clause 16 is interwoven with the earlier Sections of the Acts which are expressly mentioned in the Clause. Clause 16, for its own purposes, refers to many earlier Acts. It refers to the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, Sections 15 and 16 and the Third Schedule. It refers to the Income Tax Act, 1952, Sections 175 and 176. It refers to the Rating (Scotland) Act, 1926, to the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, Section 45, and it refers actually to the Valuation Acts Amendment Act (Northern Ireland), 1932.
It will not be necessary, happily, for me to go into them, and I will not trouble the Committee by careful, diligent and exhaustive examination of all the Acts of Parliament which are referred to in this Clause of this Bill. I mention them to show the complicated nature of this Clause and to emphasise the importance which it has for owners and occupiers, who will have to construe it, who will be affected by it and whose money will be taken under it, if it passes.
I shall endeavour to limit my argument to the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, and to that Act only, and of that Act only to Sections 15 and 16. In considering Clause 16 of this Bill, these two Sections of the earlier Act must be construed together. It is necessary to realise what these two Sections do and how the present Clause seeks to deal with them, and that I shall do very shortly, without quoting these earlier Sections at length, but by paraphrasing them briefly.
Section 16 of the Act of 1956 transfers liability for owner's rates assessed on leases of land and heritages from the owner to the occupier and provides for a consequential reduction in rent. The Section is a long one, and I have put it very briefly. Section 15 of the 1956 Act is complementary to Section 16 and freezes the assessment as at a particular period prior to the year 1961–62.
But Clause 16, ill contrast with those two earlier Sections of the earlier Act, makes no reference to this limitation in point of time. In fact, it tends to contradict it. I ask the Minister to explain that and tell us why, when he comes to reply—not at this moment. This is really a remarkable omission from the Bill. It must be looked at very closely in order to appreciate the adverse effect it could have upon the people who will be affected by it, to put it mildly—I almost said its victims.
Let the Committee contrast the two Sections I have mentioned with the present Clause and then the omission is revealed starkly. It becomes apparent in a startling way. Section 15 (1) of the 1956 Act enacts:
 The assessor for each valuation area shall. in respect of the year first commencing after the passing of this Act and of every subsequent year before the year 1961–62, make up a valuation roll…
The Section goes on for many lines, with which I will not trouble the Committee. I quote that part of it to show that it relies on that particular period, before the year 1961–62. That is the limitation. There is the freeze of which I spoke a moment ago, and that is very important for both occupier and owner. There is no such phrase in the present Clause.
The words in Clause 16 which we seek to leave out are
…and every subsequent year of assessment until Parliament otherwise determines…


This is a very grave extension of the provisions of the earlier Sections. It is a very improper thing that any Government should seek to extend earlier legislation, which has nothing to do with the Finance Bill, by means of a Finance Bill. That is not the purpose of a Finance Bill. If the Government wish to amend earlier and indeed very recent legislation—as recent as 1956—let them do so by bringing in a substantive Bill for that purpose and not endeavour to do it in an underhand way by a side-wind in the Finance Bill.
These words are not accidental. They are found many times in Section 15 and are part of the essence of the 1956 Act. Section 15 (1) contains the words already quoted. Section 15 (2) contains these words:
The Assessor of Public Undertakings (Scotland) shall, in respect of the year first commencing after the passing of this Act and of every subsequent year before the year 1961–62, make up a valuation roll in accordance with the Valuation Acts….
I quote that for the purpose of emphasising once again that the words limiting the operation in point of time are not accidental but occur again and again throughout the subsections of Section 15.
Section 15 (3) of the 1956 Act reads as follows:
 Where for the purpose of making up any valuation roll for the year first commencing after the passing of this Act or any subsequent year before the year 1961–62 it is necessary to value or revalue any lands and heritages…
10.0 p.m.
Once again I draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that this reference to limitation in point of time is not accidental in one subsection, but runs right through Clause 15. We find it in subsections (6) and (8) which refer expressly to the same dates of limitation. Here is a clear limitation to the period before the year 1961–62.
One would expect a corresponding limitation in the Finance Bill which refers expressly to, and relies upon, the 1956 Act, and expressly to Sections 15 and 16 of that Act, with which I have troubled the Committee so much in the course of this short speech. But not only are those words left out, as we seek to have them left out, but there appear the

offending words to which we object, namely,
…and every subsequent year of assessment until Parliament otherwise determines…
It is important to owners and occupiers to know where they stand, and Clause 16 underlines the knowledge of both the owner and the occupier. It is important for them to know from year to year the basis of assessment. That basis was fixed explicitly by Sections 15 and 16 of the 1956 Act. This Bill undermines that basis of assessment by enacting that it may run on until a time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary in the future. [Laughter.] We are accustomed in our legal textbooks to realise a time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary in the past, especially in connection with the prescription Acts and Statutes of limitations, but here we are invited to look forward to a time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, and it is a new conception for lawyers as well as for those who have the misfortune not to be lawyers.

Mr. Ross: Misfortune?

Mr. Hughes: Misfortune from the point of view of legislation at this time, because people who are not lawyers themselves will have to employ lawyers at considerable expense to construe this Bill and to construe the complexities and contradictions with the earlier legislation. Therefore, I say that those people who are affected by this Bill, and are unable to construe it because they are not lawyers, are in a state of misfortune. However, that is a deviation from my argument.
This Bill, and the words that we seek to leave out, would undermine the basis of assurance in the case of those occupiers and owners. They will not know where they stand. They will not know what are their rights. We on this side of the Committee objected to the Bill in 1956, and we object now, but at least owners and occupiers on reading the earlier Statute know where they stand, whereas under this Clause they will not know, because in every subsequent year of assessment Parliament may otherwise determine. Parliament has already that power to enact new legislation, and it is redundant to put these words into the Bill. They should be left out for that reason, but that is not my main objection, which I have already stated.
These words affect in a very grave way the new situation created by Section 16 of the Act of 1956, which transfers liabilities for owners' rates to the occupier. That Act was passed with the limitation in point of time to which I have referred. This Bill is without the limitation in point of time. There is a clear contradiction. The Government are seeking by this Finance Bill to extend the scope of the 1956 Act by a side wind, most improperly, and contrary to the best traditions of British legislation and Parliamentary practice.

Mr. William Ross: The third Amendment is in the name of my hon Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and myself, namely, in page 12, line 3, to leave out from "until" to end of line 4, and to insert "the year 1960–61."
This is the first of a series of rather world-shattering Amendments. I am sorry to learn that the others have not been selected. The intention of this Amendment is more or less that of my hon. and learned Friend's first one, but my reasons are different from his. However, if anyone in the Committee thought that our Amendment was at all frivolous, I am sure that after the devastating speech that has been delivered by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) he will have changed his mind. It is very serious indeed.
The purpose of the Amendment is to limit the duration of the Clause. We suggest that this arrangement should go on until 1961. The arrangement in the Clause is a well-intentioned makeshift, but it is not one that we could possibly uphold. My hon. and learned Friend has said that the people will not know where they stand. I would say that without the Clause they would know that they stood to considerable disadvantage. The Clause gives them the assurance of a certain continued benefit because it continues a system of allowances in respect of owners' rates after they have been abolished by Statute, by the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956. This is a muddled way of doing things. We spent hours upon that Act and we now read the words of this Clause and find that we are to deem that it was never passed.
Calculations are to be made upon the basis that people who are no longer paying owners' rates will continue to pay them. After the long and arduous work we did it is hard on hon. Members who were on the Scottish Standing Committee and hon. Members of this Committee. We were told that that Act was for the well-being of Scotland, and for property owners in particular. Now, for the ends of justice, we must forget that it was ever put upon the Statute Book. It may be argued that it is desirable to prolong this state of uncertainty, and of legislative Nelsonian blindness, for the present, but I do not think that this thing should be allowed to continue. It is a muddled way of working, and the sooner we find some permanent solution the better.
The background to the Amendment has been stated fairly clearly. If there are some echoes of our past legislative achievements in this Clause, there is also a low murmur of what will sweep over Scotland in the way of a shock revaluation in four or five years. English and Welsh Members, recollecting what happened in the recent past, will have a preview of what will happen in Scotland in 1961–62. Revaluation has to take place by then. We must remember that whereas, in England and Wales, valuation was related to 1939 values, in Scotland it is at current values, so that the shock will be considerable. Until the revaluation is completed all rateable assessments are frozen.
The second major change is that rates in Scotland have been completely altered Until 15th May of this year rates were divided into two parts—owners' rates and occupiers' rates, paid by owners and occupiers respectively. In the county areas the division was a fifty-fifty one, but in the burghs it was different, with the occupiers paying a greater proportion than the owners. As from 15th May, however, there is no such division. There are only rates, and those rates are paid only by the occupiers of property. The burden of the owners has been passed to the tenants. Although we must confess that there has been the compensation of reduced rents, this also brings forward a new complexity, which is dealt with in the Clause.
10.15 p.m.
The fact is that we are in the position of legislating for an allowance against


owners' rates on behalf of the owners who do not pay rates. That is the position and it is crazy. Our objection is that this crazy system has to go on for we do not know how long. No date is fixed. Of course, the obvious thing is that this should be ended as soon as possible, and that time, obviously, is after 1960–61 when the new valuation that was laid down in this Act is complete.
I think that the overall revaluation due to be completed that year is one of the things that will enable us to get rid of this makeshift arrangement and we ought to have that definite period in the Finance Bill. I oppose the unlimited continuance of this present makeshift arrangement for other reasons, because the allowances themselves are supposed, according to Section 95 (1) to afford such relief as is just and reasonable. I do not think that what is set out in this Clause is just and reasonable. It is a measure of justice, I confess, but it is not just and reasonable; and the more we depart from this present year, as we go on year after year, the less just and reasonable it will become.
That is the position on what is contained in the Clause. We consider it essential to limit the injustice of this Clause to that date, in justice, first, to the tenant; in justice to the Treasury—yes, to the Treasury—and in justice to owner-occupiers. We should remedy and completely overhaul, if not abolish, the whole present outlook on Schedule A in respect of owner-occupiership of property; but to develop that theme would be out of order.
Here we have owners who, hitherto, have been allowed to set off the annual payment in respect of Schedule A liability in respect of income or income of the value of the property. If it was a burden it has been passed to someone else. The burden of tax upon which relief was said to be necessary has been passed to the occupier. Surely. in respect of the occupier, there should be some justice. He should have some tax relief for having assumed a burden belonging to someone else. The answer to that will be that there was in his case a reduction of rent.
The Financial Secretary knows that in the case of a good deal of property outside the Rent Restrictions Acts there will be an immediate recovery of that rent

reduction. In fact, we have legislated for widening that sphere. That will be an injustice which cannot be remedied while this thing goes on for a limited period. I hope that by that date we suggest the new system will take account of this transfer of the burden which bore a tax allowance on to the shoulders of people who, in regard to it, will get no tax allowance at all.
Even in the case of those who are dealt with only partially, the time will come when the whole of their advantage will be swallowed up and they will be left with this tax burden and no relief. There is the question of property owners. So far as I can see those are the only people to whom this Clause is no unjust. There may well be a case for suggesting that we could let this thing run for as long as we like. But that is based on certain of the interpretations which I am not entirely sure will run in respect of the Clause.
If we take the formula of the calculation of owners' rates, then obviously, since there is no valuation and reducing of rent by the amount the owner paid on rates last year, it is right to limit their allowance to what it was last year. I am not entirely certain of that in all cases where rent increases are available and where their annual value will increase—remember there is only a review every five years on this. It may well be the case that they are getting an increased annual value out of their property and, at the same time, the continued statutory deductions in respect of Schedule A. To that extent, the Treasury will be at a loss.
I shall be happy to be informed that the other aspects of the Clause cover this. I know that they may well do, at least the last two subsections, to a certain extent. But I am not satisfied that it is covered all the way through. I say, therefore, that we cannot let this injustice of the Treasury continue for an undetermined number of years. If the Treasury is injured in this way, it is made up by taxing us all a little bit more.
Now we come to the position of the one class of people in the property range in respect of Schedule A who, I am sure, the Government have most closely in mind, the owner-occupier. In Scotland, the owner-occupier has borne both taxes, both the local rates. He has paid as an owner and an occupier, so obviously any


Law that passes the burden of owners' rates to the occupier leaves him exactly where he was. He will pay the same.
Obviously—and I emphasise this—if the Clause were not in the Bill, he would be denied an allowance which presently he gets while he is still liable for more or less the same amount of local rates. It is essential—in fact, we were given a promise during the passing of the Act that something like this would be introduced—but is it just and reasonable? By taking out of the rating pool all other landlords it means that when an increase of rates has to be made in future it must be divided among a smaller number of people, owners who are not occupiers and occupiers. Therefore, the owner-occupier's liability in respect of rates is potentially higher.
All over England, and certainly all over Scotland, rates are rising. If the owner-occupier is paying more in rates, and more under the old calculation of owners' rates, then the formula is not fair and just. As we depart from 1956–57, year by year for an indeterminate number of years, according to the Clause, the injustice will become all the greater. I am sure that no Joint Under-Secretary of State, or the Lord Advocate, would say that rates in Scotland will go down during the next two or three years. Everything points to the very opposite taking place, to rates going up. The allowance which owner-occupiers will be permitted to set off against Schedule A will be based on the rate poundage of last year. We are doing them an injustice which we cannot allow to continue for all that length of time.
I have said that it was a makeshift arrangement that we hoped to see ended satisfactorily as quickly as possible. For these reasons, I sincerely hope that if the Government cannot accept our Amendment as it is, they will indicate how they propose to put this matter right. Obviously, the datum line must be when the plan of revaluation of 1960–61 comes into force in 1961–62.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): It will be recognised on both sides of the Committee that the basic requirement for fairness in Schedule A is that the whole United Kingdom must be treated together and in the same way. Schedule A assess-

ments should be changed, if at all, simultaneously over the whole kingdom since it is at United Kingdom rates that tax will be imposed on those assessments. The supreme requirement, therefore, is uniformity among the three parts of the kingdom. The simple reason for the provision at which the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) has taken such offence is to achieve that uniformity.
In the case of Great Britain, the overriding provision in Section 84 of the Income Tax, 1952, is that there shall be a revaluation
 for such year of assessment as Parliament may hereafter determine.
That is the governing definition, at this stage, of the date of the next reassessment in Great Britain as a whole. It would clearly be unwise, and potentially disadvantageous to Scotland, that a definite date should be written into an Act of Parliament with regard to Scottish arrangements while the law of reassessment for Great Britain as a whole is at large, as it is in the principal Act.
It is proposed in the later part of the Clause to make a similar time prescription in regard to Northern Ireland. Thus, for all three parts of the kingdom —for the general revaluation in Great Britain, for the revaluation in Northern Ireland and for the duration of the transitional provisions of Clause 16 (1) in regard to Scotland—we shall have the same time and the same expression in the Statute Book. That is the simple intention which lies behind the phrase.
There is no reason for hon. Members to apprehend that this expression in any way interferes with the significance of the year 1961–62 in the context of rating in the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act of last year. What that Act provided in regard to rating will come into force as laid down by that Act in 1961–62, but what the Clause does is in no way contradictory to that. If the arrangements in this Clause were to continue for a year or two after the new valuation arrangements have come into force in Scotland, no injury would be done to taxpayers in Scotland; indeed, what would be happening would be that the slightly preferential position they have in regard to repairs allowances as against taxpayers in England would be preserved for another year or two.
There is no inherent contradiction if it should so happen that the new arrangements come into force in 1961–62 under the Act of last year before the transitional provisions in this Clause expire.

Mr. Ross: Mr. Ross rose—

Mr. Powell: I noted the points which the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) made towards the end of his speech, arid will deal with those in a moment. I am on the general point that there is no contradiction between the fact of the term of Clause 16 being at large in reference to transitional provision, for Schedule A assessment and of there being a specific and definite date in the 1956 Act for the new rating arrangements in Scotland.
On the other hand, it would be a very serious disadvantage for Scottish taxpayers if the year 1960–61 were the last year of the transitional provisions in Clause 16. but if Parliament had failed by then to move in the kingdom at large; for then all the difficulties which Clause 16 (1) is designed to prevent would come into existence. It is really for the security of taxpayers in Scotland that a specific year of termination of these transitional arrangements should not be written into this Bill.
So I hope it will be recognised that not only is there no contradiction to the Act of 1956, but that it would be undesirable that Scottish taxpayers should be exposed to the risk of a definite terminal date for these transitional arrangements.

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman will understand that we recognise that.

Mr. James Mclnnes: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that in this transitional period the Scottish ratepayer will have the advantage of the repairs increases in that Act instead of having the formula applied as in England and Wales in respect of gross and net values?

Mr. Powell: That is so. These transitional provisions preserve for the Scottish taxpayer his advantage of enjoying a repairs allowance based upon an annual value which includes the whole owners'

rates element. They preserve that advantage for him which he at present enjoys until there is a general re-assessment for the whole kingdom.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock raised the case where a letting might be outwith the Rent Restrictions Acts and, as a result of the transfer of burden, the landlord might secure an actually increased rent: the rent might be reduced under the 1956 Act, but there might be a subsequent rise. In that case, the landlord would not enjoy the benefits of this Clause, because the proviso has the effect in that case of taking him out; for the letting would be at an amount fixed in the circumstances set out in paragraph (a) of the proviso to this subsection.
10.30 p.m.
In that case, the hon. Gentleman quite correctly realised that there would be an injustice in combining that advantage with the advantages of this Clause; and that is the reason for the first paragraph of the proviso. The hon. Gentleman quite rightly said that as time goes on the owner-occupier gains to the loss of the Treasury and, in a sense, to the loss of his fellow taxpayers by the increased beneficial value of his occupation while the Schedule A valuation on which he pays tax is, of course, frozen. That is quite correct, and that brings me to my last point.

Mr. Ross: I cannot recollect that I said any such thing. I said the very opposite. I said that the owner-occupier is penalised as we depart from the year 1956–57 and as the frozen allowance in respect of owners' rates is made the more and more unreal by rising rates for the coming years.

Mr. Powell: Yes, but the position of the owner-occupier to which I was alluding and to which wrongly I thought that.he hon. Gentleman was alluding is that as between a landlord and an owner-occupier: the landlord, who actually receives in money the higher rental value of the premises, has to pay tax on it as excess rent under Case VI of Schedule D. while the owner-occupier, although he enjoys the same enhanced beneficial occupation, continues to be taxed under the existing Schedule A assessment.
It is that position to which I was referring. I do, however, agree with the


hon. Gentleman, and I think that the whole Committee will recognise, that it is of the nature of a transitional or makeshift—I accept the word—arrangement of this sort that the longer it goes on, the more unsatisfactory and anachronistic the provisions become. I think that it would, therefore, be recognised that it is desirable that uniformity should again be attained for the United Kingdom as a whole as soon as that is practicable, and nothing in the words written into this Clause is in derogation of the acceptance of that principle.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 18.—(EXTENSION OF PAYMENTS TREATED AS "SMALL MAINTENANCE PAYMENTS ".)

Motion made, and Question proposed,That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Geoffrey Stevens: When, a year ago, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon) introduced on the Report stage of the Finance Bill a new Clause bringing the High Court into line with the courts of summary jurisdiction so far as the right of making an order for small maintenance payments without deduction of tax was concerned, the then Economic Secretary said that there were considerable difficulties in the way and suggested that discussions should take place between the Inland Revenue, the Law Officers and the Lord Chancellor. Some doubt was expressed on both sides of the Committee as to how long those discussions were likely to take.
My hon. and learned Friend, in his present exalted position, is unable himself to congratulate the Chancellor on responding to the plea which he induced into those discussions. I am doing so on his behalf. I had the honour of supporting my hon. and learned Friend on that occasion a year ago, and tonight on his behalf, on behalf of the unfortunate women to which this Clause will bring some benefit, and on my own behalf, I

express very sincere thanks to the Chancellor for righting an anomaly and doing away with an injustice.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 19.—(EXEMPTION FOR DIVIDENDS ON GOVERNMENT SECURITIES HELD BY CERTAIN CENTRAL BANKS.)

Motion made, and Question proposed.That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I should like to ask a question and to raise, briefly, one or two points on the Clause.
The question concerns the effect of subsection (2), which, as drafted, applies to any bank as long as it
 is not resident in the United Kingdom and is entrusted by the government 
of the country concerned
 with the custody of the principal foreign exchange reserves of that territory.
If the Treasury wishes to apply those terms to it, the subsection applies to any central bank in the world. Is it the intention to limit it to countries which have become independent within the Commonwealth or is it the intention to apply the provisions at large? if the first, would it not be wiser to say so? If necessary, we could do that on Report. As drafted, the subsection is very wide. I understood from what the Chancellor said in his Budget speech that he was dealing with such countries as Ghana, which are setting up central banks, and to that extent we support the Clause.
This coming into being of new central banks in territories which used to be Colonies is one portent amongst a number of changes which are taking place in the organisation of the sterling area. I do not think that the Government are adapting themselves sufficiently to those changes. One consequence of the coming into being of central banks in other parts of the Commonwealth is that they will begin to hold gold reserves of their own, at any rate to some extent, and not rely wholly upon the gold and dollar reserves held in this country. This has happened in Australia, and it will presumably happen in such countries as Ghana and Malaya when they set up central banks, because if they have central banks they will want to keep some


of their own gold reserves in their own country.
This point was made inBarclays Bank Reviewof May. 1957, which commented:
 As more territories acquire Dominion status and establish central banks this move towards greater decentralisation of the sterling area's gold reserve must be expected to continue ".
As it happens, it will have an increasing effect upon the present structure of the sterling area.
The Economic Secretary will have noticed that South Africa has set up its own short-term money market, which apparently has been working for about a year with considerable success. There was a note about it in theFinancial Timesyesterday. If it is successful in South Africa, it will spread elsewhere and there will be less and less dependence upon London for raising short-term money. This will, of course, have an effect upon our own balance of payments.
I was interested and disturbed to read inThe Timesyesterday that India has established a special rupee account for trading with Egypt. This is a grave departure, in line with the rising of central banks, because I believe that this is the first time that a non-convertible sterling has been created within the sterling area. The rupee is a sterling currency and it is in this case sterling which can be used only by Egypt and cannot be used by the United Kingdom. If this spreads it will be an extremely grave development in the sterling area.
All these changes are, of course, bound to happen. They correspond to the general trend of economic nationalism in the Commonwealth. I feel that the Government are altogether too complacent about these changes. They are acting as if nothing is happening at all when, in fact, important changes, including that which I mentioned, are taking place. The Government continue to talk about London being the banker of the sterling area and to run the area as if none of these things were happening, whereas if the sterling area is to survive it has to be run much more as a cooperative bank, not just as a centralised hank with London running it and everybody else being a customer. The effect of the Clause is that the other central banks of the sterling area are now not

just customers of London as the banker of the sterling area, but are beginning to he co-bankers of the sterling area. We must, therefore, have a far closer association of all the central banks in the sterling area if we are to run it properly in future.
This is not yet an urgent need in the sense that, if it were not done, disaster would follow; but if changes are not made in this direction a very grave consequence will gradually begin to flow. I hope that the Radcliffe Commission looks into this aspect of monetary policy. The change in the status of the Bank of England as the banker of the sterling area is extremely important. I hope that the Government will be rather less complacent about the consequences of the sort of thing provided for in the Clause. We are not against the Clause, but we are worried that the Government are not taking full account of the changes of which this is one of the symptoms.

Mr. Birch: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) is quite right in saying that the Clause as drafted does apply, or could be made to apply, to any central bank, and not only central banks, in the Commonwealth. He is also right in thinking that it is primarily intended for countries like Ghana which are setting up central banks and transferring the assets of their currency boards to this central bank. It is also intended for other countries in the sterling area which are setting up central banks—Libya, for example, or the central hank of any other country which chose to join the sterling area.
It is fairly widely drawn because the sterling area is not necessarily something which is completely closed. The control of Parliament is fully secured, because, as the right hon. Gentleman will have noticed, no Order can be made here without an affirmative Resolution of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman made some comments which raised, as he knows. very wide issues indeed about the capital account of the sterling area in general and matters to which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition adverted in his speech in the Budget debate. I do not think that he will expect


me to follow him in detail on them, except to say that the sterling area is viable in so far as all the members of it stand together. "Upon every link in the cable dependeth the strength of the chain." That is the doctrine which the Government have always endeavoured to uphold.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

To report Progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. P. Thorneycroft]

Committee report Progress: to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — SCHOOL, BLAYDON (GYMNASIUM)

Motion made, and Question proposed,That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Oakshott]

10.44 p.m.

Mr. Robert Woof: The problem about which I wish to speak tonight is one which I raise in a solicitous desire to ease the worn-out patience of the Durham County Education Committee and the Board of Governors of the Hookergate Grammar School. I say at the outset that we are proud and thankful for what has been achieved in the educational sphere in Durham County. I wish to confine my remarks, however, to what would appear to be an insoluble problem in connection with the Hookergate Grammar School gymnasium, the construction of which was originally let to contract on 14th March, 1939, at a tender of £6,440). Work was commenced and foundations were built up to 12, 9 and 10 ft., but the contract was abrogated on 29th June, 1940. Ever since, it has stood like the rock of ages of some ancient human activity.
I am not raising this as a political matter, as I accept that unforeseen circumstances led to postponement of completion of the building upon the outbreak of war and even for some years after the war because of the concentration of available capital on more urgent school buildings and the replacement of pre-war dilapidated schools that were unfit for educational purposes. I also accept the fact that there is still much to

be done, but while we look forward to an end of the existing state of affairs, my experience in many matters has taught me not to be too optimistic; and I wish to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the conditions and to the weight of anxiety on the part of the board of governors, who are responsible for administration, and to the existing facilities for the teachers who have the responsibility for physical training in the school.
For many years I had the privilege and duty of serving on the county education committee. Whilst the interesting and devoted work encouraged me to discriminate ethically towards the welfare and happiness of education, it also enabled me to understand the deeper and wider scope of responsibility in respect of which, if my memory does me justice, a local education authority's duties require it to contribute to the physical as well as to the moral, spiritual and mental development of those in the schools in order to create conditions for healthy living and healthy growth in the schools.
To a certain degree, that cannot be said to apply in Hookergate Grammar School. To one with knowledge of the conditions and of the absence of the necessary facilities, it is quite obvious that the scholars are being deprived of the means of proper training and the skilful use of equipment which should be a permanent feature in their school life. As the school is used by about 560 scholars. makeshift arrangements are made for physical training lessons. That often interferes with the study and the concentration of the scholars, and at times the education authority has the greatest difficulty in retaining the services of physical training teachers, owing to the lack of facilities.
Furthermore, there are the requirements arising from the encouragement now given to science. More and more scholars are taking the opportunity to pursue this fundamental speculation but. as a consequence, the problem of accommodation is now very real. I would not attempt to challenge or baffle the educated linguists but, if I may be allowed to use a Tyneside Scandinavian colloquialism, to put this matter in perspective, the teachers and the scholars are absolutely "scummfished".
We know that gymnasia are part of the education structure. I admit that even in Durham County, new grammar schools arid even some of the older ones have received increased attention, enabling the education authority to promote all-round welfare, stimulate social insight and strengthen the standard of behaviour by means of individual and group training in the understanding of sportsmanship. By wise discipline, the right spirit of this recreation is reflected in self-confidence. Athletics and physical education matched to the capabilities of the scholars have had a salutary effect.
I fully understand the background of the Government's policy of financial stringency and of credit restrictions which have been imposed time and time again. We know that rising costs generally are being reflected in the rising cost of building and that many projects, thought out with the most meticulous care, and involving much planning, time and labour, have been pushed into the background. Indeed, some of them may have now sunk into oblivion. It is truly in the public interest to regulate planning, but there are times when I think that we are spending three parts of our lives living on planning. In spite of setbacks and disappointments, however, we accept the underlying conception that developments must be shaped in accordance with our ideals.
Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House acknowledge the magnitude of the work assigned to the Minister. He has to aim at conserving and perfecting the life of the community through education, and he has to cater for wide extremes of need. I acknowledge that. in view of the reply which the Parliamentary Secretary gave to a Question which I asked on 16th May. I can only comment that that was a consolation prize of an Answer. But, in view of the circumstances which have been tolerated for such a long time, and in the light of many years of eager anticipation of an opportunity to exert the undoubted influence that systematic physical training with gymnastic apparatus and appliances can bring to bear upon intellectual culture, may I ask whether it is not time now to achieve an immediate solution of this problem? This gymnasium, which was commenced eighteen years ago. has served its

apprenticeship for the priority which it should receive as a necessity and not a luxury.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. William Blyton: I wish to support the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Woof). I can recall an exact parallel of this case which occurred in 1945 at the Boldon Colliery which at one time formed part of my constituency. There we had the shell of a building which was a canteen and which was left derelict. It remained so all through the period of office of the Labour Government, but ultimately we persuaded a Conservative Government to finish the job. But there it stood, without a roof, like a spectre in the night; money was spent on it, and yet it was never finished. It was exactly parallel with the case at Hookergate Grammar School.
The expense involved in this case would not be great. It would not reduce the Government to penury. The amount necessary could be included in the financial estimates of the education committee. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to have the work finished and add an amenity to the school.

10.58 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Woof) and to the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) for putting their case so clearly and moderately. I am aware of the close interest of the hon. Member for Blaydon in this matter, because he has had many years of distinguished service on the education committee. He is, I think. Chairman of the Durham County Council Education Committee and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Hookergate Grammar School. It is also very nice, on an evening when the Finance Bill has been debated, to find that the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) is still with us to listen to this debate.
This is a three-form entry mixed school, and everyone agrees that such a school requires a gymnasium. I know that as lone ago as 1938 the Board of Education. as it then was, approved the erection of the gymnasium, and work proceeded until January, 1940, when the contract was terminated as a wartime measure.


The trouble is that the main building programme of Durham Education Authority for 1958–59 does include a number of projects of much higher priority than the erection of this gymnasium. My noble Friend has given Durham for this financial year a main building programme costing £1,250,000, and if hon. Members recall the number of local authorities there are and the total size of the new building programme, they will agree that this is a pretty reasonable allocation.
Hon. Members have mentioned the credit squeeze. Perhaps I might remind the House that last year was the year of the credit squeeze, and also the year of tighter control on borrowing. Yet if one looks at the figures for the financial year 1956–57, during the first nine months of that financial year the total amount spent on school building was £14 million up on the previous year, and the value of schools completed was up from £29 million to £37·4 million. I am speaking from memory, but I believe those figures are correct. All of the £1,250,000 for the Durham main building programme for the coming year is needed for the larger production of additional places to

meet the increase in the school population, for rural re-organisation, and what I think is of great importance, for the teaching of science and mathematics.
So while I should be the last person to dispute the urgent need for this gymnasium, I feel the claim is comparatively slight when one considers the over-riding needs of these other projects.
I can give this reassurance: we have already included this gymnasium in the reserve list of building projects for Durham for 1958–59, and this means that the gymnasium stands a good chance of inclusion in the main programme for 1959–60. I do not think that in present circumstances my noble Friend could be expected to go further. I hope that the hon. Member for Blaydon, having presented the case so fairly, will accept the assurance I have given.
Hon. Members might now consider, having made those remarks, that we have had sufficient debate. I have to get up at half-past-six tomorrow morning to open a grammar school in Leeds tomorrow afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes past Eleven o'clock.